The Bourbaki Gambit 230ページ 全24章
A Novel by Carl Djerassi, The University of Geogia Press, Athens & London, 1994
Ｃ．デジェラシ作のブルバキ・ガンビット
デジェラシ；ウイーン生れで現在、スタンフォード大学教授の生化学者、ノーベル賞を受賞するべき人だが辛辣に同僚の批評をするので貰っていないとのこと。
インターネットで検索すると、(http://www.djerassi.com)氏のＨＰがあり世界で最初に避妊薬ピルを発明等、種々の業績や著作の紹介がありました。1942年大卒から逆算すると、1920年前後の生れと推定されます。書評としては以下の言葉が上げられています。
"Probably the quintessential science novel of the past year."-Science
"A subtle meditation on the scientific personality." -The Washington Post Book World
"A novel of ideas...even a love story, mature in every sense."-San Francisco Chronicle
本の題名の、ブルバキというのは仏国の数学者4名が1943年にNicolas Bourbakiという架空の名前で共同で数多くの本や論文を論文を書いて、大部分の人がそれが実在の人と思ったという故事にならいその名前を使い、ガムビットは手始めの仕事という意味で、この本では、主人公ら4名がDiana Skordylisという架空の名前で4人組みを結成して、4年後にPCR法を発見して栄誉をうけるストリーです。PCR法は,1980年代中頃に開発されたポリメラーゼ連鎖反応(Polymerase Chain Reaction:PCR)のことで、1993年のノーベル化学賞は, Kary B.Mullis(Cetus Corporation)が受賞しています。

（登場人物）
主人公（私）Max Weiss; プリンストン大学教授、1988年に無給のSenior Research Biochemistに任命されて、怒っている。68歳。2年前に妻に先立たれて独身。逆算すると1920年生れ。
副主人公,Diana Doyle Ditmus;ジョスリンの祖母でニューヨーク大学のHumanities and Science元学部長、2回の結婚でいずれも夫に先立たれている。1936年に大学4年で27歳年上の教授と最初の結婚、逆算すると1915年頃生れ。2番目の夫は弁護士で82歳でアルツハイマーで死亡。外見は60歳以上には見えない。
Jocelyn
Powers;Dianaの孫、バイス教授の教え子の大学院生、架空名Skordylisと共著で科学誌Natureに投稿してPCR発明の栄誉を担う。
（4人組みを構成する残りの3名）
Sepp Krzilska;オーストリアのインスブルック大学教授､65歳で定年,PCRアイデアを最初に出す。
Charlea C.Conway;シカゴ大学Mathematical Biophysics教授（女性）､64歳、定年まではa few yearを残しているが学部長から、早期退職すれば、よい条件を与えていると言われる。
Hiroshi Nishimura;60歳の定年を迎えた東大教授、私立大学から招かれているが、行かずに研究を辞めてpoetryをに専念するという。連歌や俳諧は、ブルバキ・概念と同じと言う。

物語は、主人公マックスがVirgin IslandsでWhat would you use to commit suicide?とダイアナが尋ねて、最後は4年後の大晦日にマンハッタンのセントラルパークわきのダイアナのマンションで結婚式をあげ、翌日、二人が朝食をとるところで終わります。
Maxは大学理事会から無給嘱託にされたことにおこり、Dianaの庇護で、インスブルック大と東京大の男性教授とシカゴ大の女性教授、いずれも定年になったものを集めて老年パワーが有効であることを示してリベンジすることで研究を始めて、SeppがPCRのアイデアを出して、他の3人がそれを実験的にうらずけたが、Seppが功名心で抜け駆けしようとしたが、Dianaの孫のJocelynが自分の名前と4人の架空名Skordylisでnatureに勝手に投稿して、それがLevenson Prizeを受賞し、Dianaが表彰式でSkordylisの代理で受賞して、そこで4名の合成写真を見せます。
最後は二人が結ばれるのですが、小説には書いてないのですが２人の年齢を推定計算すると、Max72歳、Diana77歳ぐらいとなります。
ラブストリーとも評されていますが、最初に自殺の手段を尋ねる場面で始まりますが、最後に結婚のプレゼントとしてMaxが青酸カリ（プラシボの可能性もある)をプレゼントとして渡して、アルツハイマーになれば、それを飲むという暗示もあります。デジェラシは前書きで日本、北米、西欧におけるバイオ医学(biomedical)科学のフロンティア研究の大部分で老人社会が出現し、21世紀には1/4の人々がが60歳を超えるとしています。著者は、この本の目的を、科学者は同僚により認められたいという強い情熱を持っている、科学は内在的に共同作業(science's inherent collegiality)、及び西欧科学の老成化(graying）の３点に焦点を置いたとしています。
感想；やはり世の中には大変な人がいるものと感心しました。次々と大変な科学的業績をあげながら、すばらしい小説を書く、なかなかディー テルが書かれており、これは相当の協力者がいないとかけないのでしょう。日本学士院賞とか恩賜賞の授賞式の番目や大学の内情などの描写も正確です。

ＰＣＲ法　ぴーしーあーるほう
polymerase chain reaction method極少量のＤＮＡ（もしくはＲＮＡ）を、酵素反応を利用して倍倍で増加させる方法。
ポ リメラーゼ連鎖反応法ともよばれ、ＤＮＡ分析を大きく進歩させた。4種類の核酸が連結して二重螺旋(らせん)構造を形成しているＤＮＡは、二重螺旋を保とうとする性質をもつ。ＰＣＲ法では、分析しようとするＤＮＡの特定の領域の初めと終わりの部分に対応するように合成した2種類のＤＮＡ断片と、ＤＮＡを構成する4種類の核酸、ＤＮＡ合成酵素（ポリメラーゼ）を加えて温度を変化させる。まず高温帯で2本鎖のＤＮＡが1本鎖に分離し、それぞれ鋳型となる。次の温度帯で、加えた2種のＤＮＡ断片が鋳型に接着する。第3の温度帯ではポリメラーゼの作用により、4種類の核酸が鋳型の暗号に対応して配置・連結して延長し、2本鎖となる。この3つの温度帯をサイクルすることにより 、倍倍でＤＮＡが増え、短時間で数十万倍に増加させることができる。ＰＣＲ法の開発により、従来は検出不可能であった微量ＤＮＡの分析が可能となり、診断分野はもとより、法医学、イネのゲノム解析など多方面での分析技術が進歩した。応用分野は今後もさらに拡大すると期待される。一方、ＰＣＲ法の変法や改良法、他の増幅方法の開発、装置開発なども活発化している。この急速な開発競争は、知的所有権の問題も生んでいる。

本の後ろがき
Carl Djerassi is a professor of chemistry at Stanford University. He is the winner of the 1992 Priestley Medal, the highest American award in chemistry; the National Medal of Science in 1973 (for the synthesis of the first steroid oral contraceptive); and the National Medal of Technology in 1991 (for novel approaches to insect control). He is also the founder of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, a artists' colony near San Francisco that supports working artists in various disciplines.

本の前書き
Foreword
The Bourbaki Gambit is the second volume in a projected tetralogy that concentrates the unforgivingly bright light of contemporary life on today's scientists. Science is conducted within a close-knit culture whose members are generally reluctant to disclose their tribal secrets.
This may be one reason why so few novels, plays, or films use ordinary scientists as main characters. I call my genre "science-in-fiction" to distinguish it from science fiction. As a tribesman, I demand of myself a degree of accuracy and plausibility that impart to my storytelling a high ratio of fact to fiction. In the preceding volume, Cantor's Dilemma, I wrote about trust (without which the scientific enterprise cannot function), about ambition (the research scientist's indispensable fuel, but often also a contaminant), about the mentor-protege relationship (a sine qua non of the culture of science) , and about women (who as scientists must cope with the barriers of a male-dominated field).
Throughout that "veri-fiction" I selected dozens of real scientists for supporting roles. In The Bourbaki Gambit, I focus on three issues:
scientists' passionate desire for recognition by their peers, science's inherent collegiality, and the graying of Westem science. With one exception, my main characters have either passed or are approaching the biblical age of three score and ten years. The reason for favoring that age group is more compelling than the personal identification I acknowledge freely. In Japan, North America, and Western Europe, where most of the frontier research in biomedical science is currently conducted, we are witnessing the emergence of geriatric societies: not too far into the twenty-first century, a quarter of the population of these regions will be beyond the age of sixty. We read all the time about the social problems associated with such a skewed age distribution-problems of medicine, politics,economics, and even recreation.
Some other implications of the aging of our culture are discussed much less frequently; among these is the rapidly increasing size of the geriatric element of the intellectual elite. The Bourbaki Gambit examines in a semifictional context some of the challenges these demographic changes raise in such circles.
The title addresses the twin issues of collegiality and the desire for fame, pointing to the tensio between the collaborative effort at the heart of modern science and the desire for individual recognition in the hearts of most scientists. It refers to Nicolas Bourbaki, whose career marks one of the rare instances in which scientists have seemingly managed to rise above that tension. It is notable, however, that this triumph was achieved only by the most extraordinary means: despite a flourishing reputation bolstered by a massive bibliography, Nicolas Bourbaki does not exist. He is in a sense himself a work of fiction, the nom de plume of a group of leading mathematicians, mostly French, who have taken that name in a collaborative effort that has lasted for decades. Yet name recognition remains the most powerful component of any research scientist's ambition.
In writing The Bourbaki Gambit, I have attempted to answer a question: How many scientists would be satisfied with making a sensational discovery and then launching it into the world unattached to their own balloon?
This is also, of course, a novel about science itself. In 1989 the prestigious multidisciplinary journal Science designated PCR-an acronym standing for polymerase chain reaction-"Molecule of the Year" and "one of the most powerful tools of modem biology." The acronym was not even coined until 1986, but within three years of its invention PCR had swept the biomedical field to become the most frequently cited technology in the life sciences.
Even the Jurassic Park fantasy would have lost whatever plausibility it may possess without the existence of PCR. Yet how many laypersons have heard of PCR? And of those who have, how many can explain the concept behind it? Part of my purpose in telling this story is to make this revolutionary development and some of its applications intelligible in everyday language.
Aside from some unavoidable fictional compromises, The Bourbaki Gambit maintains a high standard of verisimilitude, thanks to the help of numerous advisers on subjects as diverse as Japanese scientific culture and ancien regime French feminism. My Japanese informant on the former topic shall remain anonymous, but it is not for lack of gratitude or affection that I omit his name. Felicity Baker (University College, London), Nina L. Gelbart (Occidental College), and Guy Ourisson (University of Strasbourg) offered valuable references to the semifictional eighteenth-century French research field I chose for my heroine, Diana Doyle-Ditmus, including a rare copy of La Spectatrice, the first feminist journal, published in 1728.
Hyman Bass (Columbia University) was generous in allowing me to introduce him by name as a character who functions in my novel (as he did in real life) as one of my sources of information on the original Bourbaki group; Liliane Beaulieu (University of Quebec), a prospective biographer of Nicolas Bourbaki, offered additional details. The field of catalytic antibodies, considered by my fictitious scientists as a potential research objective, is real, cutting-edge science pioneered by Stephen J.Benkovic (Pennsylvania State University), Richard A. Lemer (Scripps Clinic), and Peter G. Schultz (University of Califomia). As already noted, PCR, the scientific discovery made by my fictitious heroes, is not fiction but glorious fact. In real life, this discovery was made by a group of scientists at Cetus Corporation, notably Kary B. Mullis, who received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his invention.
While my novel pays tribute to their science, in no way should the actions or behavior of my Max Weiss, Hiroshi Nishimura, Charlea C. Conway, and Sepp Krzilska be attributed to any living person.
Lastly, it is my pleasure to acknowledge two outstanding debts. The ultimate meeting of my scientists in The Bourbaki Gambit occurs in a setting of dazzling beauty:the Villa Malaparte in Capri. I owe Rosanna Chiessi the privilege of access to this private retreat. But there is another Italian connection in my novel.
The last eleven chapters were written while I was a guest at the Rockefeller Fo undation's sumptuous Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio on the shores of Lake Como, anenvironment that even my fictional characters in Capri might have envied.

99-11-03 Carl Djerassi (http://www.djerassi.com)
Biographical Sketch
Carl Djerassi was born in Vienna, Austria, and received his education at Kenyon College (A.B. summa cum laude, 1942) and the University of Wisconsin (Ph.D., 1945).After four years as research chemist with CIBA Pharmaceutical Co. in Summit, New Jersey, he joined Syntex, S.A., in Mexico City in 1949 as associate director of chemical research. In 1952 he accepted a professorship at Wayne State University, and in 1959 his current position as Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University.
Concurrently with his academic positions, he also held various posts at Syntex during the period 1957-1972, including that of President of Syntex Research (1968-1972). In 1968, he helped found Zoecon Corporation, a company dedicated to developing novel approaches to insect control, serving as its chief executive officer until 1983. He continued until 1988 as chairman of the board of Zoecon (now a subsidiary of Novartis, Ltd).
Djerassi has published over twelve hundred articles and seven monographs dealing with the chemistry of natural products (steroids, alkaloids, antibiotics, lipids, and terpenoids), and with applications of physical measurements (notably optical rotatory dispersion, magnetic circular dichroism, and mass spectrometry) andcomputer artificial intelligence techniques to organic chemical problems. In medicinal chemistry he was associated with the initial developments in the fields of oral contraceptives (Norethindrone), antihistamines (Pyribenzamine) and topical corticosteroids (Synalar).
For the first synthesis of a steroid contraceptive, Djerassi received the National Medal of Science (1973), the first Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1978), and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (1978). He received the National Medal of Technology for his contributions in the insect control field (1991). The American Chemical Society honored him with its Award in Pure Chemistry (1958), Baekeland Medal (1959), Fritzsche Award (1960), Award for Creative Invention (1973), Award in the Chemistry of Contemporary Technological Problems (1983), Priestley Medal (1992), and the Willard Gibbs Medal (1997).
Other recognitions include the Bard Award in Medicine and Science (1983), the Roussel Prize (Paris) (1988), the Discoverer's Award of the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (1988), the Gustavus John Esselen Award for Chemistry in the Public Interest (1989), the first Award for the Industrial Application of Science (1990) from the National Academy of Sciences, theNevada Medal (1992), the Thomson Gold Medal of the International Mass Spectrometry Society (1994), the Prince Mahidol Award (Thailand) in Medicine (1995), the Sovereign Fund Award (1996), and the William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement, Sigma Xi (1998). The Society for Chemical Industry presented him with the Perkin Medal (1975), and the American Institute of Chemists with the Freedman Foundation Patent Award (1970) and the Chemical Pioneer Award (1973).
Carl Djerassi is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and of its Institute of Medicine, as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, the German Academy of Natural Scientists (Leopoldina), and the Mexican, Bulgarian, and Brazilian Academies of Sciences. The Royal Society of Chemistry (London) and the American Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences elected him to honorary membership in 1968.
He has published numerous poems and short stories in literary magazines as well as a collection of short stories, The Futurist and Other Stories; five novels:
Cantor's Dilemma, The Bourbaki Gambit, Marx, Deceased, Menachem's Seed, and NO; a scientific autobiography, Steroids Made it Possible; a poetry chapbook, The Clock Runs Backward; his collected memoirs, The Pill, Pygmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse; and a collection of essays, From the Lab into the World: A Pill for People, Pets, and Bugs. He has now embarked on a trilogy of "science-in-theatre" plays of which "AN IMMACULATE MISCONCEPTION," first performed in abbreviated form at the 1998 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and subsequently (1999) as a full, 2-act play in London (New End Theatre), San Francisco (Eureka Theatre) and Vienna (under thetitle UNBEFLECKT at the Jugendstiltheater) is the first installment. Under the auspices of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, he founded an artists colony near Woodside, California, which provides residencies and studio space for approximately seventy artists per year in the visual arts, literature, choreography, and music.
Nearly one thousand artists have passed through that program since its inception.