ExtractIn which we: a) meet the scientists who stumbled across p53 while investigating the cancer-causing oncogene in a monkey virus; and b) hear how, every time they tried to purify the protein made by the oncogene, they found another protein in their test tubes that they couldn’t shake off. *** How uncertain it can be, when a man is in the black cave of unknowing, groping for the contours of the rock and the slope of the floor, listening for the echo of his steps, pushing away false clues as insistent as cobwebs, to recognise that an important discovery is taking shape. Horace Freeland Judson The history of science is strewn with groundbreaking discoveries which are only subsequently recognised as such. No drama attaches to the moment itself, and life goes on as it was before. Often, the circumstances are mundane – a scruffy laboratory with test tubes and microscope...