Dog Genetics & SN2 transition states

Yesterday I went to a talk by one of the NIH Cancer Genetics Cheif, and part of the NIH Human Genome Research, that was about....dog genetics. I mean, they tied in medical applicability to Dwarfism (lessened IGF serum levels in all types of small dogs resulting in not allowing their growth plates to expand, and a either a lower copy number of that gene or a high copy number of a gene that repressed it, I can't remember), but mostly the grad students and post docs had their own little pet projects that they were studying because they found it interesting. Like, for example, someone had a wire-haired Dachshund and did their PhD thesis on studying the gene for wire-hair. They study hair type, body type, bone structure, back arch, and a little bit of behavioral stuff in this group. When you ask the lady why they choose projects in the lab she responds "we find projects that we think are interesting."

The science--in terms of the method--was very solid and well presented at a level that was comprehensible to students with little background, but was still engaging to the profs, but I felt the whole time that the topic of dog genetics was...a little goofy? Especially the motives for the projects "why does my corgi have short legs?" or "why does my dachshund have this type of coat" which seems strange that this would be my gut reaction. I mean, I think that, since biological systems are so interconnected, approaching all sorts of questions can be useful to our greater knowledge regardless of what the direct application is, and it's never a bad thing to know more about the world. I just found it interesting that she managed to swing NIH funding for studying these little pet areas of the dog genome (excuse me for the pun). She even had a project called project PyDo (for "phylogeny dog").

And to an unrelated topic, I really like tutoring because it keeps me learning new things all the time. Like, for example, that the SN2 transition state is chiral despite being Sp2. Having five things around it makes it non-superimposible even if the three substituents attached to carbon are planar (and the nucleophile and leaving group are hanging out in the p-orbital). There is a different teacher from who I had and a different book first semester, and the teacher is really into theoretical organic (i.e. the teacher I had would never ask what the hybridization of the transition state was), so the emphasis is totally different, and it's kind of like getting a new perspective on the subject as well as a refresher to help people.