Who's The Biggest Fool? - Part I

Before coming to The United States, I was a research assistant in a biological lab in Bangalore. An essential part in the life of any academic in Bangalore is the Tea Board, a canteen situated in the campus of the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, but open to all. The beverages and snacks there are of excellent quality and very inexpensive. The humble seats outside have supported many a great Nobel Laurates. It is to to this place that I and my friend went to play chess.

Drawn by the game, an elderly gentleman of dignified appearance, nonetheless a stranger to us, pulled himself a chair next to us. In due course of time, we started conversing with him and revealed to him that we were interested in the general area of biology and were working with fruitflies. There upon, he confessed that he himself was a Biology teacher and narrated us a story which I now offer to the dear reader.

A great many years ago, when he used to teach eleventh and twelfth grade students in the evenings to make some extra income, he was asked by his landlord to undertake the responsibility of his four nephews, all in their twelfth grade. All four of them were very remarkable in that they had excellent memory but no intelligence. In essence, they were fools. They could do very well in Arts, but the landlord was too proud to let any of his nephews take up Arts. He insisted on them taking Science and so it was that his tenant (our friend, the teacher) found himself coaching the four fools in the subjects of Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

What our teacher had done in essence is given them a protocol to follow in life to pass most of the examinations well. The protocol was so good that many years later, the four fools returned as researchers with international recognition having their own labs and sufficient funding. They came back to pay respects to their master and found him reviewing a manuscript revealing a new airborne virus of a deadly nature. The author of the manuscript was a friend of the teacher and when his students expressed interest in applying their newly learnt skills to tackle that virus, the teacher so arranged with the author that his former students could work on it.

The first student had studied genomics very well; he promptly proceeded to sequence the genome of the virus. The second student was very good with molecular biology, so he cloned the individual genes in the viral genome into various expression vectors. The third student was skilled in generating transgenic fruit flies and he microinjected all the genes-bearing vectors into various fruitflies. The fourth student had mastered genetic analysis - he crossed various transgenic flies with each other in all combination to study the functioning of individual genes of the virus in isolation and in a group.

Having done all of this, they invited their master to their labs. When the master called to confirm their meeting on the appointed day, he came to know the sad news that all four of his pupils were in their deathbed, having been infected by the very virus that they were studying. The genes that had been segregated apart in the beginning had come together by means of various genetic crosses and reconstituted the deadly airborne virus in the eye of the fruit fly!

Our friend paused at this stage in his story and asked us rather philosophically - who was the biggest fool of the four pupils? He promised to meet us the next day to reveal the answer. We forgot our game of chess, mesmerized by this puzzle and talked about it the whole evening and night. I wish the reader also experience the same titillation and break the story here. The solution will be revealed in the next part.