Such conversations have already produced results. During a recent talk with Brenner, Janelia group leader Gene Myers, a computer scientist famous for developing the whole-genome shotgun technique that his team used in sequencing the human genome, became very interested in the problem of the brain. "It's a little surprising to me," he said, "but I started thinking about some experiments, which I described to Sydney, and he made some astute comments. We had a period of a day or so when the conversation was really intense."

Myers finds Brenner's attitude particularly impressive. "Very often, scientists look for reasons why something can't be done," he says. "But Sydney's response is, 'Let's have a go!' Especially since I'm not an experimental scientist, I've found that liberating. So we've now got a very interesting project going in which we're literally watching the neurons firing in transgenic constructs. It's fairly high risk, yet easy and inexpensive, and there's a nice little computational problem involved. Sydney and I have got ourselves all worked up in a lather about it and we've infected everyone else at Janelia. We're going to have a go!"

		The number of people in the "worm community," as C. elegans researchers call themselves, is growing rapidly. Once regarded as a joke organism, the little worms have become a powerful experimental system, with more than 3,000 scientists working on them in some 400 labs. "Somebody told me a new nematode lab is opening every week—I believe that's the same rate as McDonald's!" says Sydney Brenner. Actually, most members of this community can trace their scientific lineage to Brenner. They are either his direct professional offspring, such as Robert Horvitz, who was a postdoctoral fellow of his at the MRC, or they were trained by people whom Brenner has trained. Paul Sternberg, who joined Horvitz's lab as a graduate student, considers himself "second generation," or F2 in the jargon of genetic researchers. So does Cornelia Bargmann, who joined Horvitz's lab as a postdoctoral fellow. Rex Kerr, an F3, was trained by William Schafer, an F2 who was trained by Cynthia Kenyon, who was a postdoctoral fellow in Brenner's lab. They share a kind of family feeling for Brenner. When a new species of nematode, closely related to C. elegans, was officially named "Caenorhabditis brenneri" in April of this year, Sternberg and his "relatives" rejoiced. He says, "It made everyone in the field very happy." —M.P.

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