welcome
by Neil Caudle

e are speaking metaphorically, of course. Proteins are not literally music. But when science sails off the edge of the world into uncharted waters, we long for an analogue, something familiar to show us the way.

So let's imagine proteomics not as it seems on the surface — not as gleaming instruments or terabytes of data or the ghostly impressions of proteins in gels. Imagine, instead, something alive. A symphony orchestra. Think how each note and each rest from a note has a role. Think how the notes are prescribed by the score and yet free of it, too, open to nuance and chance. Think how each note can attract or repel or consort or incite or arrest or append or decay. Imagine each sound inflected, unique in its timbre, shaped by the varying substance of player, instrument, listener, hall. And all of it one piece of organic music, living and whole.

Now imagine that you have just arrived from another planet and that this is the first orchestra you have ever heard. Imagine that your senses and your technology will only detect tiny bits of the music at a time. Imagine that it is your job on Earth to describe, for the first time, using numbers and pictures and words, the exact nature of each and every nuance of every tone. And you have only begun.

f you can imagine such things, you will understand something about the science of proteomics. DNA is the score, and proteins are notes. And a great deal of human suffering begins with an error in the score, or a note or two misplayed.

In our fondness for precision, those of us who write about science tend to overwork metaphors that refer to machines. We can almost come to believe that human beings are all just mechanical gadgets, wired or assembled or geared. We are much wilder than that. And so, in these pages, you will find our scientists out in a kayak, exploring wild rivers. Or casting a fishnet. Or listening carefully for the unruly music of life.

Neil Caudle is the editor of Endeavors magazine.
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