Journey of a late blooming biochemical neuroscientist.

I graduated from tuition-free College of the City of New York (CCNY) in 1933. At that time the country was in the depths of the Great Depression, and there were few positions available for City College graduates. Its students were mainly children of immigrants who were bright and highly motivated. CCNY graduates included eight future Nobel Prize awardees and several distinguished biochemists. After graduating from City College, I obtained a position at the Harriman Research Laboratories at New York University. Though it paid $25 a month, I was delighted to work in a laboratory. I assisted Dr. K. G. Falk in his research on enzymes in malignant tumors. Dr. Falk was trained as a biochemist in the laboratories in Europe. In 1924, Falk wrote a monograph on “The Chemistry of Enzyme Action.” Falk was greatly influenced by Richard Willstäter, an eminent German biochemist. Willstäter believed that enzymes were catalysts of low molecular weight adsorbed on colloidal carriers such as proteins. In 1935 I was lucky to get a position as a chemist in the Laboratory of Industrial Hygiene for $40 a week. This laboratory was a nonprofit organization and was set up by the New York City Department of Health to test the amount of vitamin supplements added to foods. In the 1930s vitamins were a hot subject in biochemistry. My duties were to modify published methods for vitamins so that they could be assayed in various food products. It required some ingenuity to modify methods for the measurement of vitamins from the literature. This experience proved useful in my later research.