You and I may talk about Sonic always referring to the blue hedgehog that runs very fast, curls up into a ball, and gave us two amazing movies, but in the world of science it’s something completely different: it’s the protein that, among other things, makes our teeth grow, develops our lungs, and regenerates hair. So, literally, we couldn’t live without Sonic. And I mean it: it’s not a metaphor.
The need for speed
Interestingly, this gene is linked to a disease that causes defects in the brain and face known as holoprosencephaly. And, for whatever reason, many doctors have complained that they cannot tell families that their loved ones have “a mutation in a sonic hedgehog gene”. The solution for a while was to try to change its name, but they finally decided to call it by its initials: the SH gene.
The name, by the way, has nothing to do with the game itself nor is the scientist who discovered it a big fan of Knuckles and company: Robert Riddle was at home after work when his wife, Betsy Wilder, came home with a magazine that had an ad for ‘Sonic’. The light bulb went off: he already had a name, although he didn’t know that it would still be standing in 2023.
And what do we call the inhibitor of this protein? Well, it’s clear, isn’t it? Robotnikinin, in honor of Robotnik. It’s not the only case of a protein with a geeky name: there’s also Pikachurin, whose name was based on the fast and electric movements of Pikachu, or the protein product Zb7b7, which might not sound like anything to you at first, but maybe it will when you know that it was originally called simply “Pokémon”. When The Pokémon Company threatened legal action for associating cancer with their game, they backed down. Science, once again defeated by Nintendo.
