Mutant Man
Forget Wolverine and Cyclops, Dr. Armand Marie Leroi knows all about the real thing – and he looks like Professor X, to boot. The Reader in Evolutionary Developmental Biology won the Guardian First Book Award for “Mutants.” In town for the Literary Festival, he told Adam White about beautiful mutants and the science of exploding worms.
HK: Who was the most fascinating mutant you met?
Armand Leroi: It would have to be a girl called Tiffany we filmed for the television series. She has a condition known as “mermaid syndrome.” It’s a fusion of the lower legs into a single trunk-like structure with the feet sticking out at the bottom, exactly like a mermaid. She’s a delightful fifteen year-old, and one of the very few of those with mermaid syndrome who survives to any age. They separated the legs, and there’s some wonderful footage of her just learning to walk.
HK: Is there a fine line between educating people about some fascinating evolutionary cases and displaying freaks for public amusement?
AL: There is, absolutely. And I think that it’s precisely because of that we’ve heard so little about mutation and deformity outside of a medical context for so long. Science gives you permission to look at these things again, except this time it’s not just ignorant gawking at the freak show, it’s part of nature’s majesty. Deformity teaches us about the normal. It’s an intervention that unravels the mystery of the body.
HK: Why are you studying nematodes?
AL: Well, they’re teeny-tiny worms but they’re awfully fascinating things. They’re hermaphrodites, so they have sex with themselves and lay lots of eggs. Males are very rare: if they do occur, they’re one in 500 and they’re pretty useless, but we need them for genetic experiments. They’re wonderful animals to experiment on because they’re tiny and you can see every single cell in the body. Of course, sometimes you blow your worm up. They’re just like little barrage balloons. The skin splits and it all just spurts out: the inevitable casualties of science.
HK: The best blurb on your work has to be from the Hull Daily Mail - “[Leroi is] a primping narcissist.” Any comment?
AL: I think I’ll have it engraved on my tombstone. It’ll be my epitaph. When I first saw it, I was absolutely furious, but then I thought, “Hmm, primping narcissist - that’s not so bad.” Which probably illustrates the truth of the point, right?
HK: You’ve met all these mutants; have you ever had a crush on one?
AL: Yes, of some sort. One of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met was a Chinese albino model from Hong Kong, Connie Chiu. I’m not sure if you should link my name with Connie’s, but she was lovely. I remember looking at her and thinking, “Well, definitely a mutant, but how utterly gorgeous.”