Faculty of Fortunate Discovery

ODT April 5 2007

"Serendipity plays a major role in scientific discoveries" world-leading University of Otago biochemist Prof Warren Tate says.

Prof Tate discussed "serendipity in science" in a talk at the Dunedin Centre yesterday during a research day organised by the university Faculty of Dentistry. He outlined how a research area could develop strategically from a fundamental study and discovery.

Prof. Tate was last year awarded the Univertsity's highest research honour, the Distinguished Research Medal

In his talk, attended by more than 160 dentistry students and staff, Prof Tate said he had encountered few "eureka" moments in science.

However, there were other occasions when sometimes initially frustrating or unexpected, experimental findings raised the possibility of making a big unanticipated discovery, he said.

Researchers should inquire in very simple terms, and without preconceptions, when part of an experiment had failed or there was an unexpected finding.

Prof Tate outlined the "wild ride" on which his career had taken him following an early "serendipitous discovery" he had made while investigatIng the genetic process of protein synthesis, in the 1980s.

His initial discoveries, including of a new mechanism for how genes were regulated, had subsequently continued to lead him into several other research areas, including moves to develop an anti-HIV drug.

Prof Tate noted that leading US scientist Dr Thomas Cech had gained the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1989 as a result of a serendipitous discovery that an RNA molecule had cut and rejoined chemical bonds in the absence of proteins.

This discovery had overturned previous scientific views by showing RNA was not merely a passive carrier of genetic information but could have an active role in cellular
metabolism, he noted.