THE GREAT MIGRATION WHAT SKILLS DO SCIENTISTS NEED TO SUCCEED OUTSIDE THE IVORY TOWER? Valentin Fuster: Why Blavatnik Awards Recognize STEM Education Gets Boost Scientists Need Mentors 11 Young Innovators from National Science Foundation Grant www.nyas.org • Autumn 2012 Board of Governors Chair Vice Chair Treasurer NANCY ZIMPHER KENNETH L. DAVIS ROBERT CATELL President [ex officio] Secretary [ex officio] ELLIS RUBINSTEIN LARRY SMITH Governors LEN BLAVATNIK ELAINE FUCHS THOMAS C. JACKSON JOHN E. SEXTON MARY BRABECK JAY FURMAN JOHN E. KELLY III GEORGE E. THIBAULT NANCY CANTOR ALICE P. GAST MEHMOOD KHAN PAUL WALKER MARTIN CHALFIE BRIAN GREENE JEFFREY D. SACHS IRIS WEINSHALL MILTON COFIELD THOMAS L. HARRISON KATHE SACKLER FRANK WILCZEK MIKAEL DOLSTEN STEVE HOCHBERG MORTIMER D.A. SACKLER MICHAEL ZIGMAN International Governors Chairman Emeritus Honorary Life Governors SETH F. BERKLEY TONI HOOVER TORSTEN N. WIESEL KAREN E. BURKE MANUEL CAMACHO SOLIS RAJENDRA K. PACHAURI HERBERT J. KAYDEN GERALD CHAN RUSSELL READ JOHN F. NIBLACK S. KRIS GOPALAKRISHNAN PAUL STOFFELS President’s Council PETER AGRE AARON CIECHANOVER RODERICK MACKINNON ELLIOTT SIGAL Nobel Laureate & Univ. Nobel Laureate & Nobel Laureate & John CSO, Bristol-Myers Squibb Prof. and Director, Johns Distinguished Research Prof., D. Rockefeller, Jr. Prof., MICHAEL SOHLMAN Hopkins Malaria Research Tumor and Vascular Biology The Rockefeller Univ.; Former Exec. Director, The Inst., Dept. Molecular Research Center, Faculty of Investigator, HHMI Nobel Foundation Microbiology and Medicine, Technion-Israel GERALD J. MCDOUGALL PAUL STOFFELS On the cover: Immunology, Bloomberg Inst. of Tech., Haifa, Israel National Partner, Global CSO, Johnson & Johnson; Dmitry Merkushin / iStockphoto.com School of Public Health PETER DOHERTY Pharmaceutical & Health Worldwide Co-Chairman, RICHARD AXEL Nobel Laureate & Sciences Practice, Pharmaceuticals Group Nobel Laureate & Researcher, St. Jude PricewaterhouseCoopers MARC TESSIER-LAVIGNE Professor, Columbia Univ.; Children’s Research LLP President, The Rockefeller Univ. Investigator, HHMI Hospital, Memphis, TN; RICHARD MENSCHEL MARY ANN TIGHE LEE BABISS Univ. of Melbourne Sr. Director, Goldman Sachs CEO, New York Tri-State Exec. VP, Global Laboratory MIKAEL DOLSTEN RONAY MENSCHEL Region, CB Richard Ellis Services, Pharmaceutical President, Worldwide Chairman of the Board, SHIRLEY TILGHMAN Product Development Research and Development; Phipps Houses; Board of President, Princeton Univ. DAVID BALTIMORE Sr. VP, Pfizer Inc Overseers, Weill Cornell FRANK WALSH Nobel Laureate & President MARCELO EBRARD Medical College CEO, Ossianix, Inc. Emeritus, Caltech CASAUBÓN HEATHER GERALD WEISSMANN Executive Editor ETIENNE-EMILE BAULIEU Mayor, Mexico City MUNROE-BLOOM Prof. of Medicine, NYU Former President, French EDMOND H. FISCHER Principal and Vice- School of Medicine Diana Friedman Academy of Sciences Nobel Laureate & Prof. Chancellor, McGill Univ. JOHN WHITEHEAD PAUL BERG Emeritus, Dept. of FERID MURAD Former Chairman, Lower Nobel Laureate & Prof. Biochemistry, Univ. of Nobel Laureate & Director, Manhattan Development Art Director Emeritus, Dept. of Washington IMM Center for Cell Corp.; former Co-Chairman Biochemistry, Stanford Univ. JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN Signaling, The University of of Goldman Sachs Ash Ayman Shairzay LEN BLAVATNIK Nobel Laureate & Chairman, Texas at Houston GEORGE WHITESIDES Chairman, Access Industries Molecular Genetics, Univ. JOHN F. NIBLACK Mallinckrodt Prof. of GÜNTER BLOBEL of Texas Southwestern Former President, Pfizer Chemistry, Harvard Univ. Contributors Nobel Laureate & Director, Medical Center Global Research & TORSTEN N. WIESEL Douglas Braaten, Rebecca Cooney, Laboratory for Cell Biology, S. GOPALAKRISHNAN Development Nobel Laureate & former The Rockefeller Univ. Exec. Co-Chairman of the PAUL NURSE Secy. General, Human Marci A. Landsmann, Noah Rosenberg IRINA BOKOVA Board, Infosys Technologies Nobel Laureate & President, Frontier Science Program Director General, United Limited The Royal Society; former Organization; President Nations Educational, PAUL GREENGARD President, The Rockefeller Emeritus, The Rockefeller Editorial Office Scientific and Cultural Nobel Laureate & Prof. Univ. Univ. 7 World Trade Center Organization (UNESCO) of Molecular & Cellular ROBERT C. RICHARDSON FRANK WILCZEK SYDNEY BRENNER Neuroscience, The Nobel Laureate & Sr. Vice Nobel Laureate & Herman 250 Greenwich St, 40th Fl Nobel Laureate & Rockefeller Univ. Provost for Research, Feshbach Professor of New York, NY 10007-2157 Distinguished Prof., Salk Inst. GLENDA GREENWALD Floyd R. Newman Prof. of Physics, MIT MICHAEL S. BROWN President, Aspen Brain Physics, Cornell Univ. ERNST-LUDWIG Phone: 212.298.8645 Nobel Laureate & Prof. of Forum Foundation RICHARD ROBERTS WINNACKER Fax: 212.298.3655 Molecular Genetics, Univ. PETER GRUSS Nobel Laureate & CSO, Secy. General, Human of Texas Southwestern President, Max Planck New England Biolabs Frontier Science Program; Email: [email protected] Medical Center Gesellschaft, Germany EDWARD F. ROVER former Secy. General, LINDA BUCK WILLIAM A. HASELTINE President, The Dana European Research Council; Nobel Laureate & President, The Haseltine Foundation former President, Deutsche Membership Director Investigator for HHMI; Foundation for Medical F. SHERWOOD ROWLAND Forschungsgemeinschaft, member of the Fred Sciences and the Arts; Nobel Laureate & Prof. of Germany John F. Grifferty Hutchinson Cancer Chairman, Haseltine Global Chemistry & Earth Science, ANDREW WITTY Research Center Health, LLC Univ. of California, Irvine CEO, GlaxoSmithKline KAREN E. BURKE ERIC KANDEL BENGT SAMUELSSON DATO ZAKRI ABDUL HAMID Membership & Annals Orders Dermatologist & Research Nobel Laureate & Prof., Nobel Laureate & Prof., Science Advisor to the Phone: 212.298.8640 Scientist Physiology & Cell Biology, Medical & Physiological Prime Minister of Malaysia THOMAS R. CECH Columbia Univ. Chem., Karolinska Inst.; ELIAS ZERHOUNI Fax: 212.298.3650 Nobel Laureate & KIYOSHI KUROKAWA former Chairman, The President, Global Email: [email protected] Distinguished Prof., Univ. of Former Science Advisor to Nobel Foundation Research & Development, Colorado, Boulder the Prime Minister of Japan; IVAN SEIDENBERG Sanofi-Aventis MARTIN CHALFIE Prof., National Graduate Advisory Partner, Perella AHMED ZEWAIL Advertising Inquiries Nobel Laureate & William Institute for Policy Studies Weinberg Partners LP; former Nobel Laureate & Linus R. Kenan, Jr., Prof. of (GRIPS) Chairman of the Board, Verizon Pauling Chair of Chemistry Phone: 212.298.8636 Biological Sciences; LEON LEDERMAN ISMAIL SERAGELDIN and Physics, Caltech Email: [email protected] Chair, Dept. of Biological Nobel Laureate & Pritzker Director, Bibliotheca GUANGZHAO ZHOU Sciences, Columbia Univ. Prof. of Science, Illinois Alexandrina, The Library of Former Chairman, Chinese CECILIA CHAN Inst. of Tech.; Resident Alexandria, Egypt Association of Science & Visit the Academy online Managing Director, Gold Scholar, Illinois Math & PHILLIP A. SHARP Technology Avenue Ltd. Science Academy Nobel Laureate & Director, www.nyas.org GREGORY LUCIER McGovern Inst., MIT Center Chairman and CEO, Life for Cancer Research Technologies Corporation Autumn 2012 contents Columns Member Memoir The Impact of Influence: 2 Letter from the President 10 The Academy takes on global Why Scientists Need Mentors challenges Renowned cardiologist Valentin Fuster believes that caring mentors can set a life, and perhaps the world, on the right path. 4 Inside the Academy News about Academy programs Cover Story and activities 12 The Great Migration With more scientists than ever seeking jobs outside academia, what skills do 7 Annals Highlights they need to succeed? Recent and upcoming Annals volumes Blavatnik Awards 19 Academy eBriefings 16 The Tipping Point Summaries of recent eBriefings The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists focuses on providing early-career support—critical for turning young researchers into tomorrow’s innovators. 25 Member News Awards, appointments, and From the Field announcements about Academy 22 First Images from the members Dark Energy Camera 26 Calendar What can light from distant galaxies tell us about the universe? Academy conferences and meetings in November, December, Event Recap January, and beyond 24 High-Risk, High-Reward Science Is it a good bet? Watch a special video recap to find out. Donor Profile 28 Spreading STEM, Near and Far An innovative grant from the National Science Foundation allows the Academy to scale a simple idea for maximum impact. Letter from the President The Academy’s Network ENCODE, the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, is a project Takes on Global Challenges funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute and focuses on identifying all regions of transcription, transcription factor association, chromatin structure and histone modification in the human genome sequence. Nature invites the New York Academy s you peruse this issue, Dr. Man- would be, which, if solved, could trans- of Sciences community to discover dana Arabi, founding director of form the health of this planet. Our mission presses us to the results via videos, Features The Sackler Institute for Nutri- On December 17-18, the world will be Ation Science at the New York Academy of attentive when The Sackler Institute holds “promote the resolution of and the collected research Sciences, and her team will be putting the an extraordinary conference to announce papers, and to explore the finishing touches on a series of white pa- the