David Duncan's book launch

This ghostly visage is DJ Polywog. She mixed the music last night for the launch of David Duncan’s The Geneticist Who Played Hoops with My DNA. Needless to say, the light was too low for my phone-cam. Actually, the image pretty much captures the atmosphere of David’s party–movies like Gattica and Blade Runner showing on the walls, a dance troop called The CarpetBag Brigade performing modern dance on stilts–all this in a club called Mighty in the shadow of the US-101/I- 80 maze in San Francisco.

The book is highly recommendable to ACSers. It consists of personal stories about key players in the genetics revolution of the past four decades. Two of these giants, James Watson and Paul Berg, are Nobel Laureates who received ACS funding at some time during their careers. And a third scientist, Cynthia Kenyon of UCSF, recently was named an ACS Research Professor. Is a Nobel in her future? Could be. The book’s a good way to get a personal perspective about the people who keep pushing the edge of our understanding of the molecular basis of cancer–even of life itself.