5 ms·

Many years ago, as a young undergrad, I ambushed Oliver Sacks right after he finished addressing a Music Therapy conference. I asked if I could run an idea by

by sswaner 12y ago

Many years ago, as a young undergrad, I ambushed Oliver Sacks right after he finished addressing a Music Therapy conference. I asked if I could run an idea by him, he said we could talk while he walked to his car. I explained my hypothesis of a potential cause of neurodegenerative diseases. He listened patiently then said "I have similar thoughts, the challenge is proving it". Then, just before stepping into his car, he said "If you are right, and can prove it, you would win the Nobel Prize. Good luck, young man." I doubt he remembers this conversation, but for me it was an amazing experience I will never forget. The lab I worked in wasn't equipped to study the idea, and I became the lab computer guy instead of a neuroscientist. But I am still grateful to the confidence given me in that short conversation.

protothomas 12y ago
What was your hypothesis out of interest?
- sswaner 12y ago
  That something, likely some kind of protein (not aluminum as was suspected back then), was blocking retrograde motion within axons, leading to reduced ability to support synaptic transmissions and causing ALS. I learned later that I was heading in the right direction, but that others were well ahead of me in the research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofibrillary_tangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofibrillary_tangle
  - vetler 12y ago
    My father died from complications from ALS last year, 70 years old - he was only diagnosed with it a few months before he died, although his first symptoms appeared a little over a year before that. Having been spared from most terminal illnesses, it was surprising that such an unknown and fast working illness exsited. I knew people could get sick and die, but I always imagined it would be something more ... well known, like cancer. Or perhaps a stroke or heart attack. That we still have illnesses that we know so little about is surprising. What makes ALS so special?
    - SoftwareMaven 12y ago
      We don't understand the brain well, and we understand how to make changes to it even less (at a very minimum, the blood-brain barrier makes things very difficult). As a result, all neurodegenerative diseases are extremely troublesome to fight.
sixQuarks 12y ago
I was hoping you were going to end the comment with something like "... and I am happy to say I went on to win a Nobel prize"
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  I wonder if HN has any Nobel lurkers.
  - tdhz77 12y ago
    Hello my name is [name] and I won the [year] Nobel Prize for [field]. Here is [my uber insightful thing to say].
  - Mahn 12y ago
    I doubt Nobel Prize winners procrastinate on HN as much as we do. They are probably busy making things happen.
    - larrys 12y ago
      I think of Nobel Prize winners as what I will call "single function machines". That is, and this is purely speculative, they are focused on only typically one goal or area of interest maniacally. The typical HN reader, by contrast, finds many things and almost everything and anything (as PG might say) interesting. [1] "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. " This is not to say that Nobel Prize winners aren't curious of course they are. But somehow I doubt they are all over the place. I find so many things interesting it's hard for me to stay focused some times with the distractions of what is available at your fingertips. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - benbreen 12y ago
        Not sure if I agree with this (Linus Pauling comes to mind), but speaking anecdotally, I once had breakfast with a recent winner of a MacArthur grant (the so-called Genius Grant) expecting to be the recipient of untold wisdom. Instead he gave me a blow by blow explanation of the delayed burial of William the Conqueror, his pet topic. Seemingly unconcerned that describing a dead king's corpse exploding wasn't great breakfast conversation.
buhrdraph 12y ago
Nothing new here. It just proves that ideas are cheap and a dime a dozen. Actually doing it is the hard part.

by sswaner 12y ago

protothomas 12y ago

What was your hypothesis out of interest?

sswaner 12y ago
That something, likely some kind of protein (not aluminum as was suspected back then), was blocking retrograde motion within axons, leading to reduced ability to support synaptic transmissions and causing ALS. I learned later that I was heading in the right direction, but that others were well ahead of me in the research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofibrillary_tangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofibrillary_tangle
- vetler 12y ago
  My father died from complications from ALS last year, 70 years old - he was only diagnosed with it a few months before he died, although his first symptoms appeared a little over a year before that. Having been spared from most terminal illnesses, it was surprising that such an unknown and fast working illness exsited. I knew people could get sick and die, but I always imagined it would be something more ... well known, like cancer. Or perhaps a stroke or heart attack. That we still have illnesses that we know so little about is surprising. What makes ALS so special?
  - SoftwareMaven 12y ago
    We don't understand the brain well, and we understand how to make changes to it even less (at a very minimum, the blood-brain barrier makes things very difficult). As a result, all neurodegenerative diseases are extremely troublesome to fight.

sixQuarks 12y ago

I was hoping you were going to end the comment with something like "... and I am happy to say I went on to win a Nobel prize"

drzaiusapelord 12y ago
I wonder if HN has any Nobel lurkers.
- tdhz77 12y ago
  Hello my name is [name] and I won the [year] Nobel Prize for [field]. Here is [my uber insightful thing to say].
- Mahn 12y ago
  I doubt Nobel Prize winners procrastinate on HN as much as we do. They are probably busy making things happen.
  - larrys 12y ago
    I think of Nobel Prize winners as what I will call "single function machines". That is, and this is purely speculative, they are focused on only typically one goal or area of interest maniacally. The typical HN reader, by contrast, finds many things and almost everything and anything (as PG might say) interesting. [1] "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. " This is not to say that Nobel Prize winners aren't curious of course they are. But somehow I doubt they are all over the place. I find so many things interesting it's hard for me to stay focused some times with the distractions of what is available at your fingertips. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - benbreen 12y ago
      Not sure if I agree with this (Linus Pauling comes to mind), but speaking anecdotally, I once had breakfast with a recent winner of a MacArthur grant (the so-called Genius Grant) expecting to be the recipient of untold wisdom. Instead he gave me a blow by blow explanation of the delayed burial of William the Conqueror, his pet topic. Seemingly unconcerned that describing a dead king's corpse exploding wasn't great breakfast conversation.

buhrdraph 12y ago

Nothing new here. It just proves that ideas are cheap and a dime a dozen. Actually doing it is the hard part.