It was a Rube Goldberg disease. A change in the sequence of a gene caused the change in the sequence of a protein; that warped its shape; that shrank a cell; that clogged a vein; that jammed the flow; that racked the body (that genes built). Gene, protein, function, and fate were strung in a chain: one chemical alteration in one base pair in DNA was sufficient to “encode” a radical change in human fate.
