Elaine Fuchs

Women in Cell Science 4877 Elaine Fuchs FMW: How has your research career impacted on your personal life and vice Elaine Fuchs was born in the United versa? States and raised just outside Chicago. In 1972 she graduated with EF: My father was a geochemist who a B.S. and highest distinction in specialized in meteorites at Argonne the Chemical Sciences from the National Laboratories. My aunt, who University of Illinois. Her lived in the house next door, was a undergraduate thesis research in biologist at Argonne, and an ardent physical chemistry focused on the feminist. My sister, four years my senior, electrodiffusion of nickel through is now a neuroscientist. My mother is a quartz. She moved from Illinois to housewife, who loves gardening and Princeton University to study for her cooking and used to play piano and paint PhD in Biochemistry, investigating in oils. Growing up in such a family, and changes in bacterial cell walls during with farm fields, creeks and ponds in the sporulation in Bacillus megaterium. near vicinity, I developed a deep interest Elaine Fuchs in her lab in 1980. In 1977, she joined Howard Green, in science that has carried me through then at Massachusetts Institute my professional life. of Technology (MIT), for her If I think back to the family influences during Vietnam War protests. Although postdoctoral studies. There, she that shaped my choice of career, I my near perfect performances on tough focused on elucidating the remember that my Dad strongly physics and chemistry exams may have mechanisms underlying the balance advocated my being an elementary turned a few heads, I don’t feel that it between growth and differentiation in school teacher. My aunt, his sister, was served the deeper purpose of education, epidermal keratinocytes, a system and denied admission to medical school and nor did it instill in me a long-standing research area that continues to she encouraged me to go into medicine. love for these fields. fascinate her today. In 1980, she was My mom told me that she thought I was By contrast, my participation in Vietnam recruited to the University of Chicago, a good cook and therefore I should War protests had a deeper impact on me, where she moved up through the become a chemist. My older sis was my and I decided to apply to the Peace ranks to the position of Amgen idol, although I found her intelligence Corps. Having spent my electives taking Professor of Molecular Genetics and intimidating. She thought I should Spanish and Latin American history, I Cell Biology and Investigator of the become an anthropologist. So, in was hoping to get accepted to go to Howard Hughes Medical Institute. contrast to my close friend and former Chile, which was headed by Allende, a She moved to The Rockefeller colleague Susan Lindquist (now director liberal democratic Marxist. I was instead University in 2002, where she is now of the Whitehead Institute at MIT), I was accepted to Uganda, which was headed the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor strongly encouraged by my family to go by Idi Amin, a ruthless tyrant. It was of Mammalian Cell Biology and to college and do something with my then that I began in earnest Development. life. I chose the University of Illinois at contemplating graduate school, Elaine’s research has encompassed Urbana (my Dad told me that if there choosing Princeton’s Biochemistry identifying and characterizing the was a good reason why he should spend Department, to move from physical keratin genes expressed in more than $2000 a year on my sciences into the realm of more human skin, understanding the education, we should sit down and medically oriented science. I always transcriptional mechanisms discuss the matter – otherwise, I should suspected that my father was somehow underlying gene expression and select either University of Illinois, our behind the decision by the Peace Corps differentiation in the epidermis and State school, or University of Chicago, to send me to Uganda, but in the end hair follicles, and revealing roles for where he got a tuition break. I vowed going to graduate school was probably Wnt and BMP signaling in skin. NOT to go to University of Chicago, the right choice for me. because my sis, Dad and aunt went Currently, her lab’s focus is on Not having taken biology since high there, and I wanted to be different). understanding the niche for school, I gravitated towards the most multipotent stem cells in skin. The At the University of Illinois, I was one chemically oriented labs at Princeton. thread that ties her research areas of three women in an undergraduate When I went to visit Bruce Alberts, he together is epithelial morphogenesis, physics class of 200. My perception informed me that he only took the best understanding how external cues (shaped at least in part by the general students, which I was certain did not transmit their signals to elicit aura of the scientific community at the mean me. Marc Kirschner was no longer changes in transcription, cytoskeletal time) was that, if I was to be accepted as focused on physical biochemistry, but architecture and adhesion to establish a smart student, I probably needed to instead had begun working with the epidermis and hair follicles. perform near or at the top of my class. I disgusting-looking frogs. I settled on a In the interview that follows, Fiona subsequently began studying very long Professor who had been quite open Watt, Editor-in-Chief of JCS, asks hours, forgoing sleep and even studying about his views that women should not Elaine about her experiences as a while eating meals in the student be in science. Despite the fact that I was woman in science. cafeteria and while picketing classes viewed by my mentor as a major 4878 Journal of Cell Science 117 (21) disappointment relative to a fellow male University of Chicago, something that I scientific organizations have cracked the graduate student who joined the same assumed was to be a trial run for an door open wider for women, and I lab, I did learn from my mentor how to academic job later down the road. I certainly feel fortunate to have been do well-controlled experiments, for viewed the invitation to speak as a free elected by my colleagues to the NAS, which I’ve been forever grateful. Twenty trip home to visit my family, and was the Institute of Medicine and the years later, my mentor’s views regarding quite amazed when I subsequently American Academy of Arts and my relative lack of scientific skills even received a job offer. It was only then Sciences. I also feel honored to have seemed to soften a bit. when I began to realize that somebody received recognition from my Although I received my PhD in must think more highly of my colleagues through a number of biochemistry, my education had not accomplishments than I did. My scientific achievement awards, including been very typical. I graduated without family’s pressure to accept the position the Richard Lounsbery Award from the yet isolating protein, RNA or DNA. was relentless and so I began an NAS and an honorary doctorate degree However, I had been frugal with my academic career as an independent from Mt Sinai and New York University $3000/year graduate stipend, and had scientist, feeling at the base of a totem Medical School. As women continue to managed to travel (3rd class) through pole of fantastic colleagues. make their way in the scientific India, Nepal, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, community at all levels and in greater Bolivia, Ecuador, Turkey, Greece and FMW: What changes for women in numbers, we will continue to see a rise Egypt (I’ve still never gotten to Chile or science have you observed during the in the creativity, reflection and breadth Uganda). In retrospect, I understand course of your career? of thinking that is so necessary to move why my advisor had not taken me EF: At Chicago, I was the first woman science forward. seriously! in a department of 15 biochemistry FMW: Do you feel that being a woman Somehow, I managed to be accepted into faculty members. But Janet Rowley, who already was a member of the is an inherent advantage/disadvantage the lab of Howard Green at MIT, and for a career in science? Why? during my postdoctoral years, I limited National Academy of Sciences and a my travel to Morocco, and began in famous cytogeneticist, was in the EF: I can’t say that it is or isn’t, but for earnest doing experiments. I chose Department of Medicine, and she sent me the discrimination I have faced Howard’s lab, because he was one of the hand-written notes congratulating me on personally has served as an inspiration pioneers in mammalian stem cell every small success that would come my and a challenge to do better, not as an biology. He had developed methods to way. This inspired me, as did meeting impediment to my career. The one thing culture human epidermal stem cells Susan Lindquist in the Department of I do feel now is that it is important for under conditions where they could be Biology, who became my long-standing senior women to remember that the road maintained and propagated. I was close friend and colleague. In 1982, Sue for women scientists is not always an yearning to switch model systems from also introduced me to David Hansen, to easy one. There is still substantial room bacteria to humans, hoping that my whom I have been happily married for for the scientific community to grow in research might be more medically 16 years! the realization that, by opening the door applicable, and I wanted to study the Chicago reorganized their biological to women, it is going to raise the level biochemical mechanisms underlying sciences departments in 1985, and Sue, of scientific excellence.

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