Return of the natives

Do you have a scientific hero? Two: Calvin Bridges and Barbara McClintock. Bridges' contributions to Drosophila genetics are without parallel. His thesis paper on nondisjunction in 1916 founded the journal Genetics, proved the chromosome theory and is still the foundation of my research plan. To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, " it is sobering to think that by the time Bridges was my age he would be dead in a couple of months ". I know that because a copy of Bridges' death certificate hangs on the wall in my office! McClintock's accomplishments were similarly awe-inspiring. I had the chance to meet her several times and even to tell her about my own research. Her ability to reduce a diffuse scientific problem to its core and her intellectual generosity were awe-inspiring. Both Bridges and McClintock truly understood how to deduce wild-type function from mutant phenotypes. How important is teaching to you? My thesis advisor, Larry Sandler, once told me that " There are three functions of a scholar: to learn, to write, and to teach (nobody said anything about going to meetings!) ". I take that charge very seriously. I think teaching is a privilege and an obligation, and I enjoy it. (I love having undergrads in the lab.) This desire to communicate the zeal I feel for genetic analysis to the next generation is also the reason that I write books. I've written two now, and I'm hard at work on the next one. There is something satisfying about collecting a corpus of ideas and facts and melding them into a coherent book. What is your greatest ambition? I suppose that like most scientists, I want to solve my 'problems', that is to understand how achiasmate segregation in Drosophila oocytes is accomplished and to understand meiotic chromosome pairing in Drosophila. The mechanism of chromosome pairing remains the biggest mystery that I see in meiosis. Although a few shadows are emerging in yeast, it is not clear to me that there will be just one or a few mechanisms for achieving pairing. There may be lots of ways a cell can accomplish this goal and it may take a while to elucidate them. Still, it will be worth the effort, because pairing goes to the heart of a fundamental biological problem, namely distinguishing between 'self' and 'non-self'. You have worked in a medical school, a state university, and now the new Stowers …