Light O'Clock (Season 2)

Episode 1: Cave studies and fruit flies – the history of chronobiology

Host: Carolina Guidolin | Guest: Orie Shafer

DOI: 10.17617/1.e338-v573 | License: CC-BY

In this episode Prof. Orie Schafer, based at the CUNY Advanced Research Center, takes us through the history of the field of chronobiology, from its beginnings in plants, through studies in bunkers with humans, and the discovery of the clock genes thanks to the tiny but mighty fruit fly.

Links and resources related to the episode’s content

• Photos of Jürgen Aschoff’s 1960’s bunker experiment [https://www.spiegel.de/geschichte/chronobiologie-schlaflabor-im-bunker-a-951188.html]

• Original publication on the discovery of the period gene by Ronald Konopka and Seymour Benzer [https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.68.9.2112]

• Further reading on the history of Chronobiology and the discovery of the molecular mechanisms of circadian rhythms [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6138759/]

Timestamps

(00:00) Intro
(01:10) Introducing Prof. Shafer
(02:14) Beginnings in plants
(05:18) Other organisms
(06:10) Studies in humans: caves and bunkers
(09:53) Where is the circadian clock?
(11:24) Search for the clock genes
(13:22) Why are fruit flies so important?
(14:50) Discovery of the period gene
(17:38) The fly vs. the human clock
(20:19) Flies and modern life
(22:49) Outro