Bio99 - Quotes and Candids

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Faculty Quotes

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The Current Top Ten List: IAP Seminar Quotes

Between the two semesters, in an effort to better acquaint the first year students with the research in the department and to assist them in chosing a lab in which to rotate, the department's faculty each present their research in a 45 minute seminar. These talks, 5-6 of which are presented a day, span about two weeks. Given a faculty predisposed to saying the absurd, this provides plenty of time for some rather unusual statements. Here then is a sampling of some of the choicer comments made by faculty during their IAP talks.

10. "I'll bet you a pie in the face the structures are alike."
-JoAnne Stubbe

9. "The first graduate student who went through the lab is now a minister."
-Bob Sauer

8. "Five postdocs just left my lab to start up a biotech company ... they weren't mad at me."
-Gerry Fink

7. "The rhino is not genetically tractable."
-Ilaria Rebay

6. "The good lord didn't intend RNAi for gene therapy."
-Phil Sharp

5. "The water bath has a platform which the rats learn to find because they don't like to get wet. Then you remove the platform. But you don't tell the rats."
-Susumu Tonegawa

4. "Why don't humans have 4 nostrils? Sorry, didn't see you there in the back."
-Monty Krieger

3. "One can in principle jump waves. I jump waves. When I have to get over sharks and stuff."
-Peter Sorger

2. "My wife used to be a computer programmer. Now she's an artist. I've had to learn a whole new set of spousal support techniques. People don't come in, put their computer code on the table and say - 'what do you really think about this?'"
-Graham Walker

1. "Most often biology screws you up."
-Tony Sinskey

Last Updated February, 2000. Bio99@MIT