Rockefeller University Digital Commons @ RU Rockefeller University Research Profiles Campus Publications Fall 1983 Mentors and Colleagues: [Dr. Clarence Connelly] Fulvio Bardossi Judith N. Schwartz Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.rockefeller.edu/research_profiles Part of the Life Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Bardossi, Fulvio and Schwartz, Judith N., "Mentors and Colleagues: [Dr. Clarence Connelly]" (1983). Rockefeller University Research Profiles. Book 18. http://digitalcommons.rockefeller.edu/research_profiles/18 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Campus Publications at Digital Commons @ RU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rockefeller University Research Profiles by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ RU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY This is possibly the best place to be zjyou want to pursue problems on an intensive level without being encumbered by academic structure. This place is about doing science. RESEARCH GRADUATE FELLOWJAMES KRUEGER PROFILES FALL 1983 Mentors and Colleagues Carol Rouzer, a recent Rockefeller University graduate, left known as The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. New York this past August to accept a postdoctoral fellow­ Long before becoming a degree-granting institution in 1954, ship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, a long way from it was a major influence in upgrading medical education in Westminster, Maryland, where she grew up. While a student this country through the hundreds of young researchers at Rockefeller she "bounced into a nice little finding" con­ trained in its laboratories who went on to fill key positions at cerning the immune system and allergic reactions which other institutions. Rockefeller is now known as-a graduate resulted in nine scientific papers. university of science and has built a remarkably successful Robert Sapolsky, a fifth-year graduate fellow, also took off graduate degree program, but this depends less on formal last summer, leaving behind his experimental rats to spend education than on the laboratory research setting. The three months on the Serengeti savannas of Kenya with hundred or so students on campus at any time are outnum­ baboons. He has been visiting the troop for five years, begin­ bered several times over by the faculty, research scientists, ning when he was still an undergraduate at Harvard, to who teach more by example than in classrooms. observe their social behavior and take blood samples. The The University granted its first Ph.D. degrees in 1959. All rats and baboons are part of a study on the neuroendocrin­ told, there are 430 aluinni. Nearly 100 are full professors in ological aspects ofstress and aging that he is conducting in the universities all over the world, six of them with endowed laboratory of Professor Bruce McEwen, a leading hormone chairs; 30 head departments or research institutes at such researcher (and Rockefeller graduate). places as M.LT., Harvard Medical School, the National Insti­ Dean Clarence Connelly. When David Baltimore, class of 1964, was presented for tutes of Health, Cambridge University, Memorial Sloan-Ket­ Behind him, the circulating his Ph.D., his thesis advisor commended his "ample qualifica­ tering Cancer Center, and the World Health Organization; collection ofthe Ph.D. theses of tions for a productive life in research." Eleven years later, at and rwo are Nobel laureates. Rockefeller graduates. the age of 37, Dr. Baltimore, a professor at M.LT., was The source of these statistics is Clarence M. Connelly. A awarded a Nobel Prize for "discoveries concerning the member of the Rockefeller faculty since 1954, he became interaction berween tumor viruses and the genetic material of associate dean ofgraduate studies in 1962 and dean in 1980. the cell." He is in a direct line of descent from the program's founder, Rockefeller University has been a springboard for young the late Detlev Bronk, and its first dean, Frank Brink, Jr., scientists for 82 years, during most of which time it was both of whom were his scientific mentors and laboratory col- Page 2 leagues for nearly all of his research career. The program is six-year course, in collaboration with neighboring Cornell close to Dr. Connelly's heart, literally and figuratively. In the University Medical College, which leads to combined M.D. breast pocket of his shirt he carries a pack of index cards on and Ph.D. degrees. Whether a specific study centers on which he keeps pertinent information about all currently cancer or dermatology, James Krueger's current concerns, or enrolled students. "Those cards are famous," says Associate lupus erythematosus, which Richard Bucala is investigating, Dean Mary Rifkin. "He's never without them. Some of them or rheumatology, arteriosclerosis, or diabetes, the goal is to are so worn I wonder how he can still read them. He's our understand the process ofpathology: how disease occurs. For walking data base." some biomedical fellows, the laboratory years also mean , It is the job of Dr. ~onnelly and Dr. RifkinsbetSelf a learning to do basic research-Rosalind Segal is studying the Rockefeller graduate, working with members of the facultY mechanisms regulating cell movement-before thinking and with Professor Purnell Choppin, vice president fQr ~ca­ about clinical applications. demic programs, to find and foster students they think ca:(l For Susan Fahrbach, the University's interdisciplinary flourish at a university that has no formal departments and approach makes it possible to study the behavior of experi­ virtually no prescribed curriculum, where teaching and leam­ mental animals and the underlying cellular mechanisms. She ing go on where the work ofThe Rockefeller has always gone is exploring reproductive and maternal behavior in female on-in the laboratory. rats. For students like Linda Hanley-Bowdoin, who already "We expect our applicants to be top-notch," says Dr. Con­ have advanced degrees and considerable previous research nelly. "What we look for beyond intellectual ability is that experience, Rockefeller offers the chance to earn a Ph.D. Dr. (:~"tJiJly and Bia"k Brink,}r., commencement day, intangible <:ombination ofcuriosity and independence and the while continuing to do productive science-in her case, plant 1983. Atthe ceremonies, Dr. maalriry to perform as junior colleagues in research." molecular biology: For Peter Hotez, whose interest is tropical ConneDy presmteJ Dr. Brink medicine, the University was "one ofthe few places I knew of for an .orarydegm in recog­ BRANCHING OUT doing parasitological research on the molecular level." nition ofhis "dedic_tion to For Wendy Fantl of England, the United States was "the For James Krueger, Richard Bucala, Rosalind Segal. and 29 scienfian4his "30years of place where most ofthe science I read about was happening." other. biomedical fellows, that means clinical reseacch. In loving andloyal sef'vice to The Her reading, while an undergraduate, prompted her to write 1972 the university added to its graduate studies jU:.ogcarn a Rockefeller University." letters to scientists asking questions about their work. One such letter, sent to a Rockefeller researcher, was passed on to the dean, who sent her a catalogue. Shortly after, she received an invitation to visit the University, to interview for the stu­ dent program. She remembers that when it came, "I nearly fell through the floor." The University is also a place where some students dis­ cover that what they want to do is not what they had thought. Dr. Connelly and Dr. Rifkin encourage entering students to explore research opportunities in various laboratories before Dr. Connelly and,lrom left, settling down, to make what James Hirsch, Dr. Connelly's Graduate Fellows Ruth Mont­ predecessor, used to call "trial marriages." gomery, Sandra Cottingham, "It's not uncommon," says Dr. Connelly, "for students to and DavidClayton. wind up in areas wildly different from what they would have Page 3 imagined possible when they came." Fred Cross, who was In the AnnualReport for uncertain of his specific research goals when he applied, was 1955-56 President Detlev astonished to learn that one Rockefeller student who came as Bronk stated: "Following some a biologist left as a physicist and another did just the reverse. months ofpreparation, the first "That's an extreme change, of course," says Dr. Rifkin, class ofgraduate students was "but it is very important for students with that innate curiosity this year admitted to the Insti­ about science to have the freedom to delve into subjects they tute as candidates for the degree haven't been exposed to, that in a conventional program they ofDoctor ofPhilosophy. This might never be exposed to:' Dr. Connelly agree's. "I think was an historic event." most people go into science not'because of their interests in In the photograph, Dr. just one narrow field but because anyone field has many Bronk, center, and Trustee cross-connections with other parts of science." In their own David Rockefeller, thirdfrom careers both Doctors Connelly and Rifkin have made cross­ left, then chairman ofthe, connections, Dr. Connelly from nuclear physics to biophysics A while ago, David and his advisor, Professor James Dar­ board, congratulate the first and Dr. Rifkin from cell biology to her current work in para­ nell, attended a lecture by another Rockefeller scieotist, Fer­ graduates in 1959. (The Insti­ sitology. "The freedom I was given as a student," she says, nando Nottebohm, in which he described his findings con­ tute's name was officially "helped me develop the confidence to believe that if I cerning the events that unfold in the brain cells of birds as changed to The Rockefeller encounter an interesting problem in a field I have no experi­ song learning develops. "We were very excited. Suddenly we University in 1965.) ence of, I shouldn't be afraid to tackle it. I learned not to be saw a feasible experimental opening for me. After the lecture ,., afraid of branching out:' we flagged Fernando down in the Faculty Club and made a "Of course," Dr.