I was at a conference last week, in Engelberg in Switzerland, when I came across sunday driver. Sunday driver is a gene. We humans all have sunday-driver genes, as well as number of other oddly named genes, including frizzled, dishevelled, frodo, pavarotti, sonic hedgehog,..

Sunday driver is so called as it it controls transport of (molecular) cargos down axons. Axons are the long parts of nerve cells, for example you have very long axons running the length of your back that you use to control your legs. As they are so long they need a transport system to move things up and down your back. I guess some geneticist with a sense of humour saw some cells with a mutation in the sunday driver gene, and saw the cargo moving slowly. They then named the gene sunday driver. Incidentally, sunday driver controls the movement of things the axon needs to stay alive, not the nerve impulses. The nerver impulses fortunately move much faster that sunday driver.

I have worked on dishevelled (which interacts with frizzled), modelling the chains this molecule forms as part of its function inside the cell. People are interested in this gene for several reasons, including its role in breast cancer. Its name comes from the fact that mutations in it cause the hairs on fruit flies to point in random directions, to become dishevelled.

Pavarotti is not really a gene, it is a mutation. I was at another conference a while ago and biologists referred to “pavarotti”. I could not understand how this mutation affected singing but so I asked about it. It causes cells to become very fat. Some biologists are so harsh.

Sonic hedgehog is what is called a morphogen and is essential in the development of your body from the fertilised egg you started life as. Morphogens are molecules that allow cells to talk to each other a space dependent way so that the cells in what will be your brain know they need to become nerve cells and the cells in your toes know they need to become muscle, bone etc cells. This gene is named after the cartoon character Sonic the Hedgehog of course.

There is also a cheap date gene that impairs resistance to alcohol (in fruit flies) and I leave it to you work out what effect mutations in the kenny gene have on lifespan… I told you biologists could be harsh.