I felt this was a chance that we shouldn't turn down, that I felt the department was sluggish, it had not made a promotion to tenure in 26 years. They had great students that came through, but the postdocs never got faculty tenure. That was just understood before they came, so I wanted to change that. And when I came back my lab and the department was not ready, they were renovating.

So, I moved initially to the MGH, to a new research building across the river in Charlestown, in a beautiful research building. My lab was next to Steve Hyman, who's a friend and a good student when I was teaching pharmacology, and there were several other people. I was there for almost two years before the labs were complete and then moved up to the medical school. But what that experience did, was it gave me a much better understanding and respect for the science going on in the hospitals. There's no place in the world whose science community matches Boston, I think. Between the MGH and the college, the Brigham, Beth Israel Children's Hospital, the Cancer Center, there's no place like it.

There are some areas that are excellent, but the aggregate of science and scientists is unprecedented. There's also a wonderful psychiatric hospital, Mass Mental Health, which I interacted with quite a bit.