Profs & Pints Northern Virginia: The Fly Room

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “The Fly Room,” on a pioneering lab that gave rise to genetics on the wings of a common household pest, with William deJong-Lambert, professor of history at Bronx Community College. In 1910, the zoologist and embryologist Thomas Hunt Morgan peered into a bottle full of red-eyed fruit flies and found among them an exception: One with eyes that were white. That simple observation would lead him and a group of students to embark on a course of research in which they used a roomful of flies to upend scientific assumptions and provide a new understanding of how our species and others came to be. When scientists today talk about X or Y chromosomes or use the term “gene pool,” they are carrying forward the work of Morgan’s lab, nicknamed the Fly Room. Learn about the huge contributions of Morgan’s team of researchers—and gain insights into the nature of scientific progress—with Dr. William deJong-Lambert, a historian of science and the author of the new book The Fly Room: The Story of the Scientists Who Discovered Genetics and Reinvented Evolution. He’ll set the stage by describing how Morgan came of age biology at a time when science still looked backward. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection had been eclipsed and overshadowed by doubt, Mendel’s laws had yet to be rediscovered, and DNA would not be understood for another half century. We’ll look at how the focus of Morgan’s research, the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is a prime example of how the study of even the simplest life forms can offer us tremendous insights into our own species. A constant presence around us since prehistoric times and in many ways as domesticated as dogs and cats, fruit flies share about 75 percent of our disease-causing genes and get cancer, diabetes, Down’s, autism and Parkinson’s disease. With 6-to-8 week life spans, they serve as time machines for observing what might happen to us over centuries. Dr. deJong-Lambert will discuss how the talents and personalities of those inside and outside the Fly Room helped determine whether they’d be credited with major scientific advance. One of Morgan’s research assistants, Alfred Sturtevant, would end up drawing the first-ever map of a chromosome. Another, the prickly Hermann Joseph Muller, went on to win his own Nobel Prize by proving that X-rays mutate genes. One of many followers of the Fly Room’s work, J.B.S. Haldane, invented the “soup” metaphor to explain creation and became one of three scientists who invented biostatistics. Outside rivals of the Fly Room who refused to accept its findings related to genes and chromosomes went down dead-end roads with their research. You’ll emerge from the talk with a greater understanding of how and why science advances. You might even end up with newfound, grudging respect for fruit flies in your kitchen. (Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.) Image: A female Drosophila melanogaster. (Photo by Hannah Davis / Wikimedia Commons.)

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Tickets: https://go.evvnt.com/3790102-0

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