Genetic Music

Some Links to examples of gene sequences transposed into MIDI., prepared by Mary Anne Clark, Texas Wesleyan University.

artist/scientists using genome sequences as musical scores. For the most part, pitches are assigned to the four amino acid identities, and then other qualities such as timbre, duration, velocity etc are determined by molecular qualities of the acids, or the proteins they code such as molecular weight, molecular volume, biochemical category, protein folding pattern, hydrogen bonds, dissociation constants(?), water solubility etc.

Dr. Nobuo Munakata believes that audio representation of genome sequences are more accessible to the human brain than patterns of letters, and thus hopes that one day the sonification of genetic material will aid in the recognition of genes; that we will be able to, one day, draw connections between genetic sequences as we are able to connect "twinkle twinkle" to "abcdefg." He has posted a number of his projects on his site, in addition to links to more genetic musicians pages. Here is an example of his work:

or: link


When bacterial cells are exposed to sunlight, a lot of photoproducts accumulate in DNA, but they manage to replicate in the presence of damaged bases. Crucial genes in this mutagenic response were identified by Dr. Takeshi Kato in 1977 and later shown to be composed of an operon of two genes termed umuD and umuC. After N-terminal peptide of UmuD is cleaved off, the proteins make a complex and bind to damaged portion of DNA, aiding polymerase to circumvent the block. Sequences of messenger RNA, UmuD, and UmuC proteins are played successively

(statement)

Peter Gena, a sound department professor at SAIC has also done genetic compositions. They are more complicated than Munakata's, because they consider more molecular factors, that determine parameters like 'duration' which is absent in Munakata.

Mary Anne Clark's own compositiona are particularly interesting to me, especially "FOX-P2 (The "Human Language Gene")",(listen) because i felt like a gene like this would have been the obvious entry point for inquiries about the relationship between music and the human genome. I looked up FOX-P2 on Entrez Gene and one of the references it displayed was this:

FOXP1 and FOXP2 expression patterns in human fetal brain are strikingly similar to those in the songbird, including localization to subcortical structures that function in sensorimotor integration and the control of skilled, coordinated movement.

(link)
A summary of evidence for this gene's expression shows that what scientists know about its nature, they know from the apparent consequences of its loss.


-dania