James Watson – about the returned medal, oncology and aging
We are close to defeating cancer – "father of DNA"
IA "FAN No. 1"One of the authors of the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule, Nobel laureate James Watson is confident that cancer will be defeated in the next few decades.He made such a statement on the air of the TV channel "Russia 24".
James Watson came to Moscow to give a lecture at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and as a fee to receive his Nobel Laureate medal for it. He recently put it up for auction at Christie's to continue funding his research, but Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov bought it and returned it to the scientist.
"It was unexpected, but very pleasant. Because the Nobel medal has always been kept by me, it meant a lot to me. I won't sell it anymore, the medal will be kept in the bank safe again. I would like to hope that she will be at our house in about a week. We're going to have a big party, invite everyone to take a look at the medal before we put it back in the safe. I think we will look at it more often than before. When we received the Nobel Prize, the Swedish banker who gave us the check said: I recommend keeping it in a bank vault. In the past, Nobel medals have been stolen because they are made of pure gold. I was given the exact same one made of brass. And it is kept in a special place in our house so that you can look at it. Probably, most often it will be possible to see a brass copy," the scientist said.
According to him, he always tried to finance a number of projects from personal funds: "Throughout all the years that I worked in the laboratory, it was not so easy to work. Because I bought some things at my own expense. The laboratory is not a rich organization. This is a great place for a team of specialists engaged in biology. My donation will be used to organize a one-year lecture series "Genes and Behavior" in honor of my favorite professor who taught at the University of Chicago. I try to help such institutions, to maintain a high level of work of those of them who train young specialists from the USA, if not from all over the world. If only scientists from the USA worked in the laboratory, I think it would not be so effective."
Now James Watson is mainly engaged in research in the field of oncological diseases. "We can finally get a full understanding about cancer. Over the past few months, I have been very optimistic. Finally, everything is working out. And, perhaps, effective drugs will be created. I am not a doctor of medicine, but I believe that in the next few years, interesting research will be done in the field of the use of new drugs. There is one promising drug. And I wanted his clinical trials to take place in Russia in the near future. This drug gives cancer patients a chance to be saved, without it they will simply die. We are very close to solving oncological diseases. We were almost able to understand why it was not possible to defeat cancer earlier. Probably, the victory over cancer is not far off. This is the main thing in my life right now. At certain stages of my life, I was engaged in other activities – writing books, managing scientific institutions. And now I am again directly engaged in science. And that's why I feel very good."
At the same time, the "father of DNA" does not have high hopes for his offspring now. "I will not make significant breakthroughs in science. But what we need now is not DNA, but drugs. This is a promising, interesting direction. For the first time in my life, I am optimistic. More than 40 years have passed since the declaration of war on cancer in the United States. I was a member of the first White House commission and was the first to be dismissed, because I said that we would not be able to find a cure in a short time. And when they declare war, they count on an early victory. Losing wars are not declared. And this war dragged on for too long," says Watson. – There is one good rule that says that practical implementation is five times more difficult than people think about it. A serious fight against cancer has been going on for 40 years. Perhaps we will defeat him in 50 years. However, the idea that we will not have any health problems in 15 years due to research in the field of DNA sequence seems to me overly optimistic. I think this idea is very misleading."
Not as optimistic as he is about defeating cancer, Watson is set up in relation to breakthroughs in other areas of medicine. "As for the brain and serious diseases. We don't understand how the human brain works. And I wouldn't be surprised if serious mental disorders arise in 100 years. I do not share the idea that only thanks to the decoding of the human genome alone, all problems will be solved and a person will not age. I am almost 90 years old. And I have already become almost 10 centimeters shorter. I'm not sure I'll live another 50. Slowing down aging is possible, but not by means of medicine, but by changing human genes. The desire to live up to 150 years? I'm not sure. The prospects are very weak. Brain research is a very complex field, we need more people and more funding. I don't think such research will be useful in the short term. We don't know how the brain's memory mechanism works. With the discovery of the structure of DNA, we thought we would learn the basics of these processes. But that didn't happen. We need brilliant ideas about how the brain works. And I don't see such ideas yet."
"I don't think we will live 50 years longer. I want to live long enough to see a reduction in mortality from cancer. Today, 20-25% of patients are cured of cancer. I would like this indicator to reach 80-85%," the great scientist sums up.
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18.06.2015