Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Program in Bioscience and Biotechnology Studies DONALD A. GLASER, Ph.D. THE BUBBLE CHAMBER, BIOENGINEERING, BUSINESS CONSULTING, AND NEUROBIOLOGY An Interview Conducted by Eric Vettel in 2003-2004 Copyright © 2006 by The Regents of the University of California ii Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ************************************ All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Donald Glaser dated November 18, 2004. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Donald Glaser, “The Bubble Chamber, Bioengineering, Business Consulting, and Neurobiology,” an oral history conducted in 2003-2004 by Eric Vettel, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2006. Copy no. ______ Donald Glaser iv Donald Glaser and Bubble Chamber Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, UC Berkeley, early 1960s v Table of Contents—Donald Glaser Interview 1, November 18, 2003 Tape 1, Side A 1 Family background—Boredom of early education—Diagnosed as retarded— Childhood in Depression Cleveland—Learns viola—Appeal of physics— Professor at age eighteen Tape 1, Side B 10 Attends Case Institute of Applied Sciences during WWII—Wrestling champ— Navy V-12 program—Plays in Cleveland Philharmonic—Determined to become physicist—Inspiring teachers—Graduate school in physics at Caltech Interview 2, December 2, 2003 Tape 2, Side A 20 Interest in molecular genetics—Joins Carl Anderson’s group—Studies cosmic ray physics—Importance of engineering design to experimental physics—Oppenheimer story—Nuclear structure vs. particle physics, theoretical vs. experimental physics— Prestige of physicists—Federal support for physics research—Doctoral thesis on cosmic ray particles Tape 2, Side B 29 “Running E=MC2 backwards”—Work with cloud chambers—Strange particles Academic job at Michigan—Invention of the bubble chamber—Folklore version: beer story—True version: search for a meta-stable physical situation: chemical approach, electrical approach, physical approach Tape 3, Side A 37 More on invention of bubble chamber—Search for pure liquid—Calculating boiling point of diethyl ether—“An indescribably simple experiment”—Successful test at Brookhaven accelerator—Origin of beer story—Theoretical background for hydrogen bubble chamber—Enrico Fermi’s error—Real beer story Interview 3, December 9, 2003 Tape 4, Side A 46 Theoretical and experimental aspects of bubble chamber work—Xenon bubble chamber—Identification of pi0 meson—Move to Berkeley—Work on parity conservation and time reversal invariance—Preference for working with small team vi Tape 4, Side B 55 Publications in Physical Review and Il Nuovo Cimento—Broken scissors story—Bubble chamber’s effect on physics—Professor at Berkeley, 1959—Working at the Bevatron Tape 5, Side A 62 Army of scanners—the Nobel Prize, 1960—Banquet with the King of Sweden—More on bubble chamber’s effect on physics—“An enormous lever”—Unhappiness with growing scale of high energy physics—Decision to change fields—Goal of scientific work Interview 4, December 16, 2003 Tape 6, Side A 68 Change of fields to molecular biology—Point of tenure—Excitement of working in molecular biology in 1960s—Work with xeroderma pigmentosum—Experiment on growth of bacteria—Learning molecular biology from friends and colleagues— Reorganization of biology departments at Berkeley Tape 6, Side B 75 Work at Berkeley’s Biochemistry and Virus Laboratory—Automating pattern recognition of bacterial colonies—The baby machine—The dumbwaiter—The Cyclops and Lazy Susan—Resistance to automation in biology—Founding Berkeley Scientific Laboratory—NIH funding cut—Founding Cetus Tape 7, Side A 84 BSL partnership with Bill Wattenberg—More on founding BSL—Materialism a weakness of our society Interview 5, February 10, 2004 Tape 8, Side A 88 More on BSL and Wattenberg—More on founding Cetus with Ron Cape, Peter Farley, and Moshe Alafi—Improving yield of Gentamicin for Schering-Plough—Branching out into genetic engineering—Big Pharma’s lack of interest in genetic engineering Tape 8, Side B 97 Relation between academia and industry, between Glaser’s work at Berkeley and at Cetus—Changing ethics of biological research—Work on genetics of E. coli—Calvin Ward, Cetus’s first employee—Early investors in Cetus—Scientific Advisory Board Tape 9, Side A 107 Recombinant DNA: Cetus’s missed opportunity—Hostility to genetically manipulated organisms vii Interview 6, March 2, 2004 Tape 10, Side A 112 More on founding of Cetus—“Doing good for mankind” with DNA—Applying computerized automation to biotechnology—Three themes in Glaser’s career—Transition from molecular biology to studying the brain—Simulating the visual system Tape 10, Side B 120 Significance of optical illusions—Leviant’s Enigma—“Looking for a simple rule”— Model of motion detection—Difficulty of getting published in biology—The correspondence problem—Motivation for studying vision—Trainability and normal visual behavior—Reliability of data in physics vs. biology and medicine—Visual psychophysics—Physics and paradoxes, biology and mysteries Tape 11, Side A 130 Glaser’s contribution to physics, molecular biology, and neurobiology—Reductionist nature of physics—Scientific mavericks and team players—Tolerating craziness— Politics: slogans vs. facts viii Biotechnology Series History—Sally Smith Hughes, Ph.D. Genesis of the Program in Bioscience and Biotechnology Studies In 1996 The Bancroft Library launched the forerunner of the Program in Bioscience and Biotechnology Studies. The Bancroft has strong holdings in the history of the physical sciences--the papers of E.O. Lawrence, Luis Alvarez, Edwin McMillan, and other campus figures in physics and chemistry, as well as a number of related oral histories. Yet, although the university is located next to the greatest concentration of biotechnology companies in the world, the Bancroft had no coordinated program to document the industry or its origins in academic biology. When Charles Faulhaber arrived in 1995 as the Library's new director, he agreed on the need to establish a Bancroft program to capture and preserve the collective memory and papers of university and corporate scientists who created the biotechnology industry. Documenting and preserving the history of a science and industry which influences virtually every field of the life sciences and generates constant public interest and controversy is vital for a proper understanding of science and business in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The Bancroft Library is the ideal location to carry out this historical endeavor. It offers the combination of experienced oral history and archival personnel and technical resources to execute a coordinated oral history, archival, and Internet program. It has an established oral history series in the biological sciences, an archival division called the History of Science and Technology Program, and the expertise to develop comprehensive records management and to digitalize documents for presentation on the Web in the California Digital Library. It also has longstanding cooperative arrangements with UC San Francisco and Stanford University, the other research universities in the San Francisco Bay Area. In April 1996, Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. provided seed money for a center at The Bancroft Library for historical research on the biological sciences and biotechnology. And then, in early 2001, the Program in Bioscience and Biotechnology Studies was given great impetus by Genentech’s major pledge to support documentation of the biotechnology industry. Thanks to these generous gifts, the Bancroft is building an integrated collection of research