Acknowledging the History of Genetics & Genomics: Dr. Christopher Donohue

Per the National Human Genome Research Institute, Dr. Christopher Donohue is a historian at the NHGRI at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He co-manages the History of Genomics Program.The History of Genomics Program is a unique history and science communications effort at the NIH that uses the history and present manifestations of eugenics, scientific racism, ableism, heteronormativity and their complex connections to contemporary genomics and medicine to facilitate meaningful and difficult conversations that promote equity and confront past and present wrongs.

NHGRI Eugenics & Scientific Racism Fact Sheet: https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Eugenics-and-Scientific-Racism

NHGRI Eugenics: Its Origin and Development (1883-Present) Fact Sheet: https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/educational-resources/timelines/eugenics

Transcription

Transcribed by Tooba Rashid (she/her)

JP Flores (he/him): In this episode, I sat down and had a conversation with Dr. Dr.Christopher Donohue a historian at the National Human Genome Research Institute, or NHGRI, at the National Institute of Health, the NIH. This interview was conducted on March 17th, 2023. At the NIH Chris co-manages the history of genomics program, a unique history and science communications effort that uses the history and present manifestations of eugenics, scientific racism, ableism, heteronormativity and their complex connections to contemporary genomics in medicine to facilitate meaningful and difficult conversations that promote equity and confront past and present wrongs. He also conducted over 60 oral history interviews which cover all aspects of modern biology, genetics, and genomics. He has also organized and/or co-organized several meetings and symposia, many of which can be found on YouTube. Hope y’all enjoy.

Christopher Donohue: I’m Christopher Donohue, I’m the senior historian at the National Human Genome Research Institute, and I also co-manage the history of genomics program under- in the Office of Communications, which is in the office of the Director at the National Human Genome Research Institute. And I have grown up in Washington, DC. I live in Bethesda now. And I have, you know, benefited, I think, to start off, you know, benefited from really, really greatly from outstanding unbelievable mentors all through my undergraduate and graduate education. You know my when I so I did my undergraduate in history and philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and I had the privilege of studying under really amazing historians. Uhm, one really amazing undergraduate mentor for me was Christopher Leslie Brown, who essentially wrote the book on on the British Abolition Movement of the British Abolitionist movement called Moral Capital. And Chris, so Professor Brown is now at Columbia, and he actually leads, or has led, Columbia’s inquiry into sort of their reckoning with with slavery and sort of the the foundation of that university and it’s connection to enslavement on the use of slave labor. Uhm, I really benefited greatly from working with Toby Diet, who is a early colonial historian of man and masculinity, and of sort of this this early colonial history. Uhm, and she she was just an unbelievable teacher for me. I benefited greatly from working with again as an undergraduate, Philip Morgan who wrote really foundational works on colonial slavery in the United States and the in the tide water. I also benefited greatly, as just at Hopkins, from working with Dorothy Ross, who was- who remains a foundational historian of the American Social sciences and a statistics psychology.So and after after that I I moved to the University of Maryland. where my M. A. Thesis was actually one of the first or the first to focus and locate the sort of defenses of slavery in the nineteenth century and the basically the antebellum period. Uhm and in basically in medical discussions, medical discourses, medical practices. I focused on the in particular, oe of the principal architects of this kind of medics lies biological-based defenses of of slavery and enslavement. I then switched after my M. A. Thesis. or I worked with people like Whitman Ridgeway and Ira Berlin. Ira Berlin, it was again. He is sadly passed away, but he was a foundational historian of the antigom slavery. With a really unbelievable book called Many Thousands Gone. But I wanted to work intensively, much more in sort of European history and a little more contemporary history. And think very critically about the the history of scientific racism and the history of history of eugenics.

JP Flores (he/him): Alright, real quick. So if you’re curious about eugenics and scientific racism the next couple of things are straight from the NHGRI website. And this is some pretty heavy stuff. So eugenics is the scientifically erroneous and immoral theory of racial improvement and planned breeding. And this gained popularity during the early 20th century. Eugenicists worldwide believed they could perfect human beings and eliminate so called social ills through genetics and heredity. They believed the use of methods such as involuntary sterilizations, segregations, and social exclusion would rid society of individuals deemed by them to be unfit. On the other hand, scientific racism is an ideology that appropriates the methods and legitimacy of science to argue for the superiority of white Europeans and the inferiority of non-white people whose social and economic status has been historically marginalized.

Christopher Donohue: Uhm, because and also sort of modern science and technology. So I ended up working. And the the reasons for this. I can go into a little bit more, but I just wanted to either kind of the educational background, but I I wanted. I ended up working with Jeffrey, Hersch who is a really a sort of foundational historian of Nazi, Germany, a foundational historian in the history of eugenics and and and anti-semitism. He wrote a book, which is now reaching its fortieth anniversary, called Reactionary Modernism which describes sciences and ideas under sort of Weimar Germany and and Nazi race state, and which he basically argues that that science, that all of the modern accompaniment of science, all the modern techniques of science, can actually take us backwards. And that’s why it’s called reactionary modernism. And my my dissertation was on basically a a global theory of, or a global history of of replacement theory in a theory called social selection, which is this idea that that you have natural selection in nature, and that’s being replaced by a civilizational selection. And this was one of the key things that eugenicists, or supporters of eugenic ideas and practices used to defend various forms of eugenic ideologies by saying that because civilization was fundamentally changing, that there needed to be a to to be a sort of an inquiry into eugenics, and it’s scientific nature. And of course all of this is wrong, pseudo-scientific, and moral, not ethical. But I I I remain interested in this topic of of in particular how post war geneticists were geneticists and other scientists after the Second World War, really continue to defend Eugenics and continue to defend scientific racism because of what they consider to be these civilization forces. And and around that time, too, because I was, I’m someone with a visible disability. I came, became very interested in the interconnections between Eugenics movements, ableism, scientific racism. And just as I sort of as a as a as a personal matter, simply because much of the eugenics of Eugenics’s movements, much of the Eugenics’s ideologies then and now really take as their focus for marginalization in the disabled people. Or and also rendering groups of individuals disabled in some way or the or the other. So that’s sort of my bit of a brief overview of some of my my education and some of my interests. And Yeah.

JP Flores (he/him): cool. Well, thank you so much. I’m glad that you are are joining us today. So I have a quick one-off question is is there an alternate life in which you move to the West Coast and and stay in Academia, or what is the reasoning for for joining the NHGRI.

Christopher Donohue: Well, the reasoning for joining the Nhs is a is a really fun story at that point I was so back in like 20. Oh, gosh! 2010, 2011. I was. I was working at the American Institute of Physics, and I. So I was just doing straight up history of physics. And I got contacted by a friend of my families, who actually was the previous Director of Communications at the NHGRI who said, Well, we’re looking for a historian to help us with sort of inventorying and saving and cataloging Francis Collins’s papers, who at that point, you know, had become the you know, director of the NIH. So through this mechanism. In 2012 and 2013. I I was hired by Eric Green to really start that foundational work of of building an archive. So it was like right you know, as I was finishing my PhD. so I’ve never really had the the opportunity. I and I I have to say that NIH is was and remains, I think, the perfect place for me in my interests. And and you know, and that’s how that’s how I think about it just because of the unique expertise and the unique people here.And the ability to to really do some do amazing work with not only kind of on the research side, but in terms of public communications.

JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. So can you tell us more about about public communications? Let’s let’s get into the History of Genomics Program. Right? So can you tell us more about that and all the different archival works you’ve collected, and and what you have to do with them. And we can why it a little bit.

Christopher Donohue: Right. So yeah. So the history of Genomics program is a kind of a unique, a unique effort at the NHGRI. So it is a program which is in the Office of Communications in the Office of the Director. So it’s actually embedded in a NIH IC.

JP Flores (he/him): Sorry y’all- pause. So I had to sneak in here and say that when Chris refers to an IC he means it is embedded in one of the NIH institutes or centers.

Christopher Donohue: So there’s as you, you probably know, and as some of your re-reader listeners probably know, there’s the National Library of Medicine. There’s the Office of History. And then there’s us, and we’re kind of this internal to the IC history program. And this history program has kind of added, as one of its cores. And here I have to say that I get a ton of help from Lisa Pitman, Sarah Bates, Brittany Kish lots. All the people that I work with Eric Green all the scientific. So it really is a collaborative effort. But at the core of this or one of the course is this is this archive, and this archive is about 2 million pages. It’s all digitized. And it is really, I think, a a almost day by day discussion a day by day, sort of repository of the beginnings of the Human Genome Project in the in the late 90s. Through to well-known scientific programs like 1,000 genomes, HapMap, ENCODE, the LC research program. Oh, gosh! Other other things. We have lots of things on TCGA cancers. So so there’s a core archive where it was Eric and I many, many years ago, and and another person here that’s very important, is Chris Wheathersand. We’re all thinking. We have this amazing, unbelievable resource of one of the most important. It’s not the most important program in, you know, contemporary biology and genetics, and we have at least for the NIH role, an extraordinarily fine grain record of of many, all of the things, all of this behind the scenes, decisions that were made in this, in this archive, and this archive continues: as genetic science grows and grows, so that’s kind of the first thing and the second thing is a uhm is a and a a. So we we make a a portion of these materials available, and we have a very active, slowly community that has continually put out books and articles and chapters, and talks about using all of our materials for now 10 years. I think another really important facet of the history. Genomics program is our oral history effort where we interview key grantees and key sort of program scientists. And these key grantees and program scientists really give us a sense of the living history of the Human Genome Project, the living history of genomics that allows us to really think about our. You know the status of the archive. The status of the of the materials allows us to to think it’s a fill in some gaps. It allows us to question what’s there it allows us to clarify what’s there it allows in some senses. Sometimes the archive actually clarifies those conversations. We also have had as a as a third element. A very long history of, you know, symposium and and scientific presentations, presentations for the historians, presentations from bioethicists, where we are very keen on not only sort of being, a a a, a, a, an archive being an interview space for scientists. but really thinking critically about genomics from a research perspective, and also from a public communications perspective. So those are like just 3 of the elements that the history Genomics program has that I think, are really essentially important. And all of this has become increasingly molded by by Sarah in the Communications office, in ways where, consistently the issue, the discussion is, how do we take these resources. Take this expertise and make it impactful, make it part of the public conversation. And so, yeah.

JP Flores (he/him): I I think that’s awesome, and it’s it’s funny, because as a as a early career researcher, you know, one would maybe you wonder why you’re doing all this like I again going to Occidental its it’s awesome that you’re doing all this. But again, I I think a lot of the colleagues and a lot of my colleagues in science, would you know, wonder why so can you give us just your- This is a 1 million dollars question. But give us your why.

Christopher Donohue: So in terms of like collecting, basically collecting. And then right yeah. So.

JP Flores (he/him): Yes.

Christopher Donohue: So I think it it this. So this is a really really interesting question. And I think a really foundational one. One of the things that I think we we are able to illustrate is just how this you know, basically the the the genome was sequenced. And then, essentially, how we’re going into an environment where we have essentially something like a pan genome reference where we have multiple genomes that are more and more sort of representative of of of human diversity and and kind of human uniqueness. What’s very interesting about all of this is the degree to which the archive really demonstrates. and it how complicated, how contingent. And how difficult much of this work was where I think the the archive in particular, takes many of the assumptions that you have about kind of the linear way of science, right that science is simply progress. And essentially subverts them very critically because it it. You are able to say that many, many things did not go as planned. Many, many things took longer or more expensive than than anticipated.You know, in 2000 in 1992 for example, the sequencing cost was $3 a base. So if you think about something like that, and where we are now, it really gives, I think, a a sense of progress, but also a sense of of just hum- real humility that, in fact, there is nothing guaranteed about about about science itself. I also think that you know we are living in an era where genomics is everywhere, and where genetics is an essential part of the conversation. We need to have as complete a record as we can in order to not only understand where that comes from, but to critique the assumptions that that ubiquity gives us. You know that that ubiquity produces right, so it’s genomics is everywhere, but you know it didn’t it wasn’t always so. And my, you know the archive at the NIH. The NHGRI is is one of the ways where we can really look at the development of genomics as something which is now an essential and an important part of our lives. But I think is in a. You know, when you look at the historical progressions of these things. There’s this contingency there’s this fragility. There’s this complexity which allows you to really go behind it. Say, Well, we are here now. And it was really difficult to get here. And I think this is very important for people to understand as well. It was a little bit of a broad answer. But

JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, no, it most definitely, most definitely. And I feel like, and I wanted your insight on this so very recently. There was a a very unfortunate event, where you know a GWAS, for example, genome wide association study led to-

JP Flores (he/him): Quick pause, so in genomics a genome wide association study or GWAS is an observational study of a genome wide genetic set of variants from individuals to see if any variant is associated with a specific trait.

JP Flores (he/him): To a very catastrophic event in Buffalo. The Buffalo shooting, and I was wondering what conversations do you and your office have regarding issues like that, right? And then. you know, thinking about other GWAS studies like GWAS for intelligence, for example, or for educational attainments, like, what are those, what types of conversations are you having? What is what is being said behind closed doors.

Christopher Donohue: right? So I I think the in the context of the Buffalo massacre there has been, and there continues to be, a discussion about first of all what what is genomic science doing which is fundamentally transformative? And what is genomic science doing which is which can be seen as fundamentally stigmatizing right? How can we prevent as researchers as thinkers as bioethicists? How can we prevent these kinds of events from happening happening again? It and is it sort of essential, is it? There’s something essential to the science itself. How how much you know do do investigators and researchers? You know what is the responsibility there? How much is it. and to what degree is it, you know? Sort of a a, a, a, a a perversion of of the scientific inquiry itself? And I think those discussions need to be had because of the degree to which any technique, any study, any, has a. And I think if this is the case for genomics generally as both transformative potential and also potential for being stigmatizing and ostracizing. And I think one of the things that I that is really important for understanding the the context of this in the Buffalo Shooting is the degree to which we need to have a discussion about very seriously how scientific data is used, and what the responsibility of the sciences is, and and in particular, how how scientists need to engage and need to essentially fight back; that the data is not the data right? The data is not the data, and that it’s it’s In some instances, I think, much too easy to say. Well, I produce the study and people, and that’s the data, and people can interpret it as they want. So that I don’t think is is something that I think that was the status quo for some time, but I don’t think that’s the status quo. So I really think that the the Buffalo Shooting the Buffalo Massacre has enabled us to really think about the moral status of the scientists in significant ways. I think, too, that this is where all of the office of communications. The NIH and the and your eyes work in terms of sort of very much deconstructing ableism, deconstructing stigma, deconstructing scientific and structural racism is so important. One thing that we really Haven’t talked about is the the programs that might that that the history journalists program in the office communications have done in terms of looking at the history of signed up racism. Looking at the history of ableism and genetics and disability. I think the the the the the Buffalo Shooting of the Buffalo Massacre. the sort of the rise and continued presence of the Alt-right the persistence of anti-semitism, the persistence of these reaction and errors of around your placement. The persistence of eugenics, movements, and eugenic ideas and practices all of these really necessitate a really programmatic approach whereby there is a a consistent effort by scientists institutionally to break down structural and scientific racism, ableism.To look at how populations are described and discussed, to see whether the studies themselves are stigmatizing to have dialogue about the presentness of history. I think all of that with our office, our tide office, the NIH UNITE program, and the history, generous program, all are working in order to really increasing these dialogues, so that scientists understand the stakes, and they understand the history of the general public understands the stakes they understand the history, and that it it. And that we can really show that we understand these, the concerns of these communities, and that, in fact, it’s imperative that that genomics fulfill its revolutionary potential and not these potentials for violence. not these actualities for violence, which are continually potential as well.

JP Flores (he/him): Yeah. And how do you? How do you propose that we, you know, educate everyone on this subject matter? I’m trying really hard to get you to be able to talk at, You know UNC’s Department of Genetics retreat, and whatnot. But what do you think needs to happen for for the NIH’s goals to be seen by all these, you know academic institutions right? So it’s a matter of changing their DEI curriculums as a matter of doing more outreach to work getting out to the public into the communities. What are your thoughts on that? What is the best way to do this? Christopher Donohue: Yeah. So I think it depends on the I think it depends on the institution. I think most broadly. And we’re seeing this with the ASHG and other organizations. I think the first step is acknowledgment. The first step is acknowledgment that Eugenics is a very, very recent part of history and that that many, many geneticists and other scientists promoted Eugenic views. Very. It’s sort of been very recent history up through the 1990s, even in even in many cases, in some cases today. And one of the real powers of the ASHG sort of Historical Reckoning Report is there acknowledgment that there is the intertwining of the history of Eugenics and the history of scientific racism, and what we consider to be the science of human genetics, the sciences of statistics. The science is medical genetics, genomics. And that, in fact. eugenics, scientific racism is not an accident of ideology. It’s not an accident of history that they are very much present with us today. And we And I think one of the ways that you just exhibit this, and one of the ways that you illustrate this, and one of the ways that you really really highlight this, and and make this known to scientists and institutions and administrators, is by showing them the residents of this history by essentially putting up quotes and saying, this is what your colleagues, not so many years ago, have said. This is some of the examples of, say, recent sterilization. These are some examples of of, you know this is, you know, sort of in in broad scope, what the Buffalo Massacre Manifesto is about where that manifesto in in many instances really misuses genetic studies, but still uses titles from them, and still draws a resource from those studies where these the you know, many of, and Alt-right discourse uses very, you know, sort of misuses, very contemporary science, and just illustrating that for audiences in in very kind of blunt ways. I think it’s a really important facet. I think, in terms of of programmatically just emphasizing the presentness of this, that it is. There is the history of the Eugenics movement. There is the history of slavery and scientific racism. But to really emphasize that these, this is a present reality, and it continues to be a reality for for many groups, many marginal and presently and historically marginalized groups, also size groups in the context of biomedical sciences, and and in the context of outside of them. And you know more specifically, just thinking about how do clinicians? How do scientists? How do geneticists talk about disability? In many instances a lot of those terms are very, very similar to terms used in the 1930s, right? So there’s not a lot of division between the the the the terminology is someone better. But you still see in lots of medical genetics textbooks that that current investigators use. These is really dehumanizing vocabulary, and these vocabulary is in some instances continue to dehumanizing. So when we talk about sort of atypical, neurological or neuro-development, right or we talked about normal, you know, mutation right when we. So it’s really an inquiry into our very language that we take for granted that I think, should you know, as part of the historical discussion also, be, you know, so just a a a an extraordinary sort of frank discussion of the language that we use in everyday, and the methods that we use in everyday. So principal component analysis, and how it represents groups can be extraordinarily stigmatizing. Uhm, the polygenic risk scoring, as as you know, also can be extremely stigmatizing. They also can lead to scientific advances. But I think they’re They’re thinking about this as as a as a potential potential to always go back to to potentially go backward, as as we’re also moving forward, we’re really impressing upon individuals that the some of the very methodologies that that they use, that they consider to be objective, neutral and natural are actually many of the things that are driving some of the the abuses of science that you see on on on these sort of right-wing fringes

JP Flores (he/him): Definitely. And have you talked to other scientists about that? For example, Has there been any pushback has to have people. You know, wave that away. Yeah.

Christopher Donohue: So I think this is an important discussion. I I think it also depends on where you sort of time is important. So I remember when I first started really working on these topics, I got a lot of pushback. The NIH and the genetics community in particular has has become a lot more knowledgeable about these, the the contemporary of a lot of these discussions, the responsibility that needs to be taken. These. So these discussions are becoming, I think, a much, much more like dialogues. And but I I think there still is a resistance on a couple of fronts. The one is to, I think distinguish between genetics and genomics where there is a it’s kind of a history of Eugenics in genetics, whereby genomics is somehow free. Of this of this history. I I think you can reject that on a variety in a variety of contexts. one of which is, it’s a bit like they’re they’re different floors of the same house. So you can’t walk out of a window. You’ve got to go through the door. And also, if you look at the history of genetics and if you look at all of the methodologies and all of the principal personalities, there would be no genomics without the history of genetics and molecular biology also because of how these things go disciplinarily. Essentially, genomics is genetics you know, genome wide and at scale. And it’s really a question of of emphasis, and it’s a distinction without a difference. So I think there is a there is a tendency to say that Eugenics is something that’s in the past, and that what we do now in terms of basically prenatal screening and diagnosis. diagnosis and screening throughout the life course. The clinical applications of genomics, these exploratory genome studies around complex behavior, that this this can’t be Eugenics, because it’s in the present. Or this can’t be used eugenically because it’s in the present. And my contention has always been that for, for as greatly, you know, greatly revolutionary as all of our tools can be, they can he all be used for Eugenic purposes? So and it really just depend. And what what is really stopping this? And it was really preventing. This is is these dialogues that we’re having at the Nih and the Nhs. And really kind of the the ethical participation of of scientists in this inquiry, as you know, something which is anti eugenic and anti racist, which is, I think, really important for education in terms of education, and just a acknowledging that there is this: there is this potentiality for all of the all of the joy that comes out of these amazing scientific discoveries. So I I think there’s definitely a lot of resistance in this sort of partitioning of the the past and the present, because I still think that many people. Even, and even I’m, not historians still locate eugenics as, and scientific racism as something in the path they don’t know that 31 states. Still, it is legal to involuntary sterilize individuals in 31 States. There are have been continual efforts by historians like Alexander mean a stern Jim Taybury. Natalie Lira, to to acknowledge the presentness of these sterilization campaigns and their legacies on the part of public health departments, and getting public health departments to acknowledge their roles in the involuntarily realization campaigns in the pursuit of public health. And all of this is is very recent and still in flux. So you know, eugenic involuntary civilizations peaked in 1962 so so, and leveled off, and have declined, but that I think it’s still very much a a present day thing, and in in many ways. If you see there’s a lot of really horrifying data that’s come COVID pandemic around the the the sort of diversion comes of many historically and presently marginalized groups, including disabled individuals in the context of COVID. With these sort of triage protocols. Where I I think there’s an argument to be made, and some of my colleagues have made this that we we still have. We still are addressing many of the same potentialities of Eugenics in some of our middle practices, with our discussions around, around scarce resources, and in general all of the discussions that clinicians have about quality of life, about autonomy and around disability. Where I think these things are still very present. So once the present, this is described. and I think argued for, these conversations become much easier, and I’ve been having very productive discussions with many geneticists around just these topics.

JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, that’s awesome thing. So I have 2 more little questions before I go into my fun questions. The first one being, you know, someone wanted to learn more. A colleague might want to learn more about you know history of racism and and eugenics, I’d assume there’s it’s all in the NHGRI website, right like. Where can we find some resources to-

Christopher Donohue: Right. So we have a number of fact sheets where we have a fact sheet on the history of Eugenics. We have a fact sheet on. Well, actually on. We have a timeline on the history of Eugenics. We have a fact sheet on the history, on eugenics and scientific racism. We also have an amazing talking glossary which actually addresses many of these sort of foundational terms, like race and racism, Eugenics. Many. We’ve also ensured that many of those, many sort of chromosomal conditions are are accurately portrayed. So there’s a there’s a wonderful resource in terms of our talking loss that that hundreds of thousands of people visit a year. There’s also hours and hours of amazing symposia that the history of Genetics program office communications has done around the history of Eugenics and scientific racism, is a 2 day symposium with my good friend, and colleague, Marie’s Torto. There is one on there’s another one on Genomics and Disability, which is the which I Co-Led with my finding colleague Mike Rambis at the University of Buffalo Center for Disability Studies. We just had a a round table on social and Behavioral genetics, and it’s promises and perils in which we really addressed. You know what is sort of what is, what are the consequences of the buffalo shooting? What are the consequences for the responsibilities of historians. What are the continuities and discontinuities between behavior and social genomics and the legacies of Eugenics, and these are all available on Youtube. So there’s lots of resources there. There’s also a excellent links, an excellent sort of digest of publicly available resources that we’ve also gathered from a a variety of places like the Holocaust Memorial Museum. nd also, you know, from confront Eugenics, which is Mari’s Torto’s effort to sort ofdevelop and promote anti eugenic practices in science and civil life. So we have a number of resource. I also should say that we’re building those resources out continually. So in this sense this is very much a work in progress.

JP Flores (he/him): Thank you. And my last question is, is there anything else You’d like to tell everyone? It’s okay. If you don’t, it’s okay. If you don’t.

Christopher Donohue: Huh? Gosh, I so I would. I would. I would say to I guess one thing, which is to say, I think the NHGRI and the NIH is a unique place. Because the NIH and the NHGRI I have allowed me to do 2 things simultaneously that I don’t think is is really done. Very much kind of in academia one is which is to do really serious research in the history of genomics. This your population, genetics, the history of Eugenic movements and scientific racism and to really reflect and to promote those, you know, basically be a space to have discussions around that research, to bring in scholars to bring in academics, to bring in physicians and practitioners, and to really have those impactful conversations. I think you know, with the buffalo shooting those conversations need to happen, because again, we, I I think, are in a very difficult space where we have revolutionary potentialities for unbelievable progress and unbelievable growth in the science, and we also, because genetics is everywhere. I think the potentialities for a misattribution and for abuse are really rampant, and we’ve already seen the results of that. You know, I think. And and that, I think, is a unique perspective that I have in terms of really promoting sort of really serious research and really public dialogue in ways that are that are seamless. And i’m not sure it could happen every any warehouse or in many other places, just because we’re able to just draw together, expertise and have these discussions in the moment in ways that I think our audiences really find meaningful.

JP Flores (he/him): Definitely.

Christopher Donohue: Yeah.

JP Flores (he/him): Thank you so much. Well, that was amazing. And I’m really excited to, you know. Stay in touch with you, but I do have a little more, some more fun questions for you if you have the time. First, one being what is your favorite place to go to to, you know, relax, or study. Or just anywhere.

242 00:39:10.480 –> 00:39:13.010 Christopher Donohue: Gosh. I was gonna say. Well, there’s politics and prose which is in DC. Which is a really well known bookstore, and they have a really great cafe, which they remodeled, and they sort of took out some of the older furniture, which I sort of just like. But I I I I used to work in bookstore, so I always like going to book stores and being in cafes, you know, and I think just hang, you know, like coffee is basically I my main motivation. So any place that is often I will. I will go to If it’s great coffee. I will stay. So that’s sort of my, my really significant, My significant. You know. Leader activities is drinking coffee and sort of reading as much as I can where you know i’m, I’m also trying to relax it as well JP Flores (he/him): Cool. Yeah, if I ever have a when I head up to then NIH I gotta like. Get you up for coffee, I guess one day. Huh?

Christopher Donohue: Yeah, it’s it’s not gonna be hard. It’s basically where it’s like, Where’s Who has all the coffee. Well, that would be Chris. Now, caffeine, caffeine is my one vice. So yeah, and I, you know, and I think mostly to relax like a lot of people, I mean, there’s a history of of individuals kind of going. So I take a lot of walks. and I do that. And but yeah, so. But you know, to do well, actually, because Bethesda is a very walkable city. So, like a walkable area. So I tend to walk around quite a bit

JP Flores (he/him): Cool. Yeah, that makes me so excited. I I just wanted to go to a a town where everything is walkable, because, being from LA, nothing is.

Christopher Donohue: Yeah having lived in LA I can certainly see that it’s basically LA is definitely just distance.

JP Flores (he/him): Do you have any favorite music? Favorite songs or podcasts?

Christopher Donohue: Music? Oh uh I’m a huge fan of soundtracks. Of movie soundtracks.

JP Flores (he/him): Hamilton or like-

Christopher Donohue: Oh, beg your pardon?

JP Flores (he/him): Hamilton, or is that not? Does that not count as a movies soundtrack? I guess not, that’s more Broadway.

Christopher Donohue: Oh no not really, I remember, like you know, like the Blade I’m such, you know. I’m like a kind of aficionado of of science fiction so like the Blade Runner soundtrack, you know. Things like that. I like twin peaks, you know things like that. Uhm, you know. I also I guess i’m a little old school. I really like classical music. And and when I’m when I’m sort of abroad, I mean that’s some one of the things that I can talk about with people sort of in Europe, is. There’s a generation that still really really likes classical music. And I, you know, and I can sort of drop a classical music hint. Everybody sort of lights up. It says, oh, this this guy he knows, who Carl Richter is right. So you know that’s that’s a really. So I’m. I love soundtracks. I love classical music. It tells you a lot about history and culture. I really like opera, by the way, is weird, like If you actually read the the opera, you’re like that’s weird. Oh, like kind of scary. So it’s like super scary, right. It’s it’s based on a really disturbing fairy tale, and they would just perform this, you know, for an audience. And you know, I I think classical music, and you know culture. It allows you to think a little bit more about the culture like Star Trek. You know, is is, or like Star Wars is our version of opera. Because it’s an opera. Not a lot of it has to make total sense, and that’s but Star Wars so. And you know, and then you get these really cool things like the the guy who did the the Tenant soundtrack and the guy you did the Mandalurian soundtrack are the same person. So that’s and I think that’s super cool. And it’s super fun to listen to

JP Flores (he/him): Awesome alright, last one. What do you like to do outside of work. So is it just walking around listening to the soundtracks? Or is there anything else?

Christopher Donohue: I’m reading everything I have a really an unrepentant reader of science, fiction, fantasy, philosophy, history. I I’ve had an abiding interest in in American history. Obviously, for a really long time Russian history, history of eastern Europe. I I spent a lot of time just reading. You know science fiction. You know Science Fiction lots and lots of science fiction that that’s been the case since I’ve been really really young, you know, watching eventually, my son, and I fear it’s being adapted to TV. You know, that’s an always fun process. It’s like watching icebergs where you know. You see a little bit, and then you realize all this stuff below. You know. Just you know it’s just a little bit, you know, like boring stuff that just just a lot of reading.

JP Flores (he/him): It’s not boring, I think it’s really enriching. I love reading non fiction. And I mean, you know, James Baldwin and and Angel Davis people like that.

Christopher Donohue: Yeah, I those those are really great. I mean to to think about that see. So my favorite authors include Richard Wright. Some of my favorite authors include you on the some of my favorite authors include. You know, Melville, I think you know, if you want to understand America, read it’s fiction. Okay. So if you want to understand, there’s a brilliant book by Sam Otter, on Melville, called Melville’s Anatomy, which unpacks all of those really on a really problematic, really complicated notions of race and underscore is that Melville, for example. You know Melville was very content to to understand and to accept as science, even though it’s through the scientific things like phrenology. Phrenology is this sort of measurement of faces and skulls whereby you take a measurement, and you see a feature on this arbitrary feature on a skull, and say that it’s, you know, part of your emotional intelligence. And Melville was really indebted to a lot of what was then science at the time, which really classified people and groups and individuals, according to these really arbitrary criteria. And you know in a way what American fiction does, I think, in a in a serious way. Is it, it describes another process by which sciences and letters have been continually describing people rather than helping. You know, but that help is, I think we have to have a dialogue about that. But you know one of the reasons that I like Science Fiction s everything in science. Fiction is open. At least it it should be so. So. You know, when you have work like Octavia Butler or The Gun you everything is open, so there’s no race. There’s no I mean the war. They They’re very complicated notions of race, gender, past, future, where people have existences and those existences are ratified and seen. And sometimes for a lot of people. Unfortunately, that only happens in in Science Fiction, and I think we need to take a lot of you know the best elements of that that speculative energy around Science fiction, and like, put it into reality right? Because mostly what Science Fiction and a lot of fantasy particularly now, does when I was younger it was. It was. You know, George R. R. Martin was the only thing that you, you know the only thing that you got. But now, because there’s so much more just you know, unbelievable authors from a variety of backgrounds. You you really see sort of the uniqueness that you want to. You Really, you read the uniqueness that you want to see in the world right? And I think that’s also what motivates a lot of what I do is is I I you know, with my reading, I have a firm sense of what’s possible, and that I try to sort of take that back into reality where essentially we have all these. Really. We have all of these really historically situated, and presently seen dichotomies, and none of these dichotomies make any sense, you know, and that’s where you get able of them, and heteronormativity and racism, and eugenics and and fiction allows us to think of a way in which we can indeed be different, and think of a way in which there are indeed worlds that are possible.

JP Flores (he/him): Yeah, most definitely, I think that’s a beautiful ending. And then I think the whole episode should have been on Science Fiction books now. But you can’t take it back right.

Christopher Donohue: Oh I it was a while back. I wanted to do a conference that says race is a fiction. Just science fiction and fantasy authors coming to talk about their account of race and ethnicity and identity.

JP Flores (he/him):And you can organize that right?

Christopher Donohue: I can organize that.I think that’s a that’s a beautiful idea.