If I were a biology PhD student my life goal would be to discover a molecule just so I could name it Pikachu. Oh wait. That’s already been done [...]]]> The sonic hedgehog homolog gene “is one of three proteins in the mammalian signaling pathway family.” It also has a repressor protein. Guess what it’s called? Robotnikinin.

If I were a biology PhD student my life goal would be to discover a molecule just so I could name it Pikachu. Oh wait. That’s already been done too.

Some people are really upset by quirky gene/protein names like this, with a list out for the top ten offenders. The big argument is that it would suck to tell a patient that their sonic hedgehog gene is malfunctioning. I guess I should be more sympathetic to this argument seeing that I’ll be a physician and all one day, but if it were me, I would at least be gratified in knowing that my disease name had a personality and but for its deformity would have been the fastest thing alive.

Also, I spent a year and a half working with a gene called “chk1,” the full name of which was “Serine/threonine-protein kinase Chk1.” While a lot of my lack of results is probably because of my lack of laboratory skill, I sometimes wonder: if I had spent the year working on a gene instead called sonic hedgehog homolog, or lunatic fringe homolog, or death executioner Bcl-2, would I have been inspired by the ironic poetry enough to produce something?

In other relatedly unrelated news, I have been having a strong craving for ice cream lately. I guess I don’t eat much of the usual Western vices here (it’s been months since I had fast food).

Edit: Hey comparative literature students; that protein name thing would make a great essay. Maybe you could win a prize. Throw in some Deleuzian identity theory and say a few big words out of a molecular biology textbook and you should be set.