Cross & Crescent

Educated in a two-room schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, J. Michael Bishop (Gettysburg 1957) excelled in academics. The son of a minister, he knew little of science and was instead captivated by history, literature, and philosophy.

To this day, he insists he never intended on becoming a scientist. Yet on February 14, 2005, President George W. Bush named Bishop a recipient of the 2003 National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for science and technology. Sixteen years earlier, he received the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Not bad for a scientist who would consider choosing the career of a string quartet musician, “with exceptional talent,” he adds.

Prepared for Chance

Winning either award would easily represent a lifetime of achievement. For Bishop, however, he says he was just in the right place at the right time.

“Chance only comes to the prepared mind,” says Bishop. “You have to recognize that you are in the right place at the right time to exploit opportunity once you come upon it.”

Bishop began his research career working on the replication of poliovirus. But soon after arriving at the University of California at San Francisco in 1968, he shifted his attention to Rous sarcoma virus, hoping to explore the fundamental mechanisms of tumorigenesis. In 1970, he was joined by another scientist, Harold Varmus.

Together, Varmus and Bishop directed the research that led to the discovery of proto-oncogenes — normal genes that can be converted to cancer genes by genetic damage.

Their work eventually led to the recognition that all cancer probably arises from damage to normal genes, and provided new strategies for the detection and treatment of cancer.

Bishop and Varmus received the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. They also won the 1982 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research for their proto-oncogene work.

Bishop has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he holds honorary degrees from Gettysburg College, Miami University, Rochester University, and Harvard University.

Follow rules or break them

With this much recognition, one might think Bishop is either a brilliant scientist or simply someone who is quite good at winning awards. If you’re wondering the latter, Bishop wrote a book entitled How to Win the Nobel Prize: An Unexpected Life in Science.

“I have not written an instruction manual for pursuit of the prize,” says Bishop. Instead, the book is more of a reflection on the experience of being a Nobelist, some history about the award, and a review of his own career as what he calls an “accidental scientist.”

“The title was meant to be ironic,” he says, explaining how it started out as a joke for a lecture title. “But it was so amusing to people that I thought I would keep it for the book.”

In reality, there’s no formula for earning the Nobel Prize. “There’s so much luck involved in doing a piece of science that merits the Nobel Prize,” he says. “You’d be silly to say there is a recipe for it.”

But there may be a recipe for coming up with profound scientific discoveries.

In addition to timing, Bishop says that a scientist must be willing to take a chance in order to make a major discovery. “Usually, making a major advance involves breaking a previous rule,” he says, pointing out three lessons he’s learned the hard way.

“First, the outsider often sees things more clearly than the insider and should not be intimidated by his inexperience. Second, the scientist must trust her or his own imagination, even if, perhaps especially if, it runs counter to received wisdom. Third, there is no substitute for intellectual daring: if you want to rise above the pedestrian, you must be prepared to take risks.”

“Breaking rules is one of the fundamental connections between creativity in various fields. And so then you come to the problem of what happens after you have broken all of the rules,” Bishop ponders.

It will be a long time before scientist are able to break all of the rules, mostly because they are still uncovering new ones. But brilliant findings like Bishop’s discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes gets us one step closer.

Transgressing Boundaries

In addition to being a leading contributor to cancer research for the past 30 years, Bishop serves as chancellor and university professor at the University of California at San Francisco.

“Teaching lies at the heart of culture,” says Bishop. “If we didn’t transmit knowledge from one generation to the next, culture would die out.”

When it comes to cancer, Bishop is clearly one of the world’s most knowledgeable experts.

“Our understanding of cancer has advanced almost miraculously over the last 20 years,” says Bishop. “It is thrilling to say that we have been able to make progress. That we have, through human ingenuity, gained insight to this immense human problem. So in that sense, there is a desire to communicate, to explain, and to make clear.”

Bishop admits science has not been succeeding very well in communicating its discoveries. “Our public education has by and large failed to convey the kind of understanding about science that can be used throughout life to appreciate a new finding. If you are not a science major, the kind of science instruction available to you is just completely off target.”

As a minister’s child who obtained his elementary education in a two-room school, Bishop heard little of science while growing up. His high school was also small, consisting of 60 graduating students. And despite completing his degree in chemistry, Bishop graduated from college still knowing nothing of original research in science.

If science is to make greater progress, scientists must do a better job of communicating knowledge to the public, and the public needs to be more open to new intellectual insights.

“The consequences are a poorly informed public,” says Bishop. “There is perhaps no more profound disconnect between the community of science and the general public than the continuing strife over evolution.”

The scientific debate between evolution and intelligent design is being played out in schools and by politicians. Many scientists don’t want a debate, for they maintain that the theory of evolution and natural selection is “rock solid,” says Bishop. “Whereas the explanations for the origins of the universe and life remain hypothetical.”

“They [creationists] think that humanity was created — poof — 4,000 years ago,” says Bishop. “We in biology know how old life is. We know how old the universe is. Until texts and teaching present an honest and clear image of evolution, the public confusion will continue.”

Bishop believes scientists should be supremely honest in their dealings with the public or governmental agencies. “A scientist has to be honest,” he says. “The success of science is built on integrity, and that success has never been greater than in our age.”

According to Bishop, the most fundamental tenet when talking about science to the public is that scientist should never make predictions. “Science is full of the unexpected,” he says. “The progress in science, in essence, is the unexpected. You look at the major breakthroughs in the natural sciences and they were utterly unexpected.”

In the United States, cancer is presently responsible for about 25 percent of all deaths. In the field of cancer research, Bishop is looking for the unexpected.