a story lives forever
Register
Sign in
Form submission failed!

Stay signed in

Recover your password?
Register
Form submission failed!

Web of Stories Ltd would like to keep you informed about our products and services.

Please tick here if you would like us to keep you informed about our products and services.

I have read and accepted the Terms & Conditions.

Please note: Your email and any private information provided at registration will not be passed on to other individuals or organisations without your specific approval.

Video URL

You must be registered to use this feature. Sign in or register.

NEXT STORY

Mind, Brain and Behavior

RELATED STORIES

Missing Boston and friends
Gerald Fischbach Scientist
Comments (0) Please sign in or register to add comments

While I was chairman of the department we recruited nine people, each one a long search, so that took a lot of time and effort and consensus. Eight of those nine were promoted to tenure, which was unheard of for any department, let alone the stodgy neurobiology group. But they've all worked out well and I think people there are extremely happy. In fact, I have the urge now to go back to Boston. Not to live, but to spend time, take a train up and spend a couple of days just trying to learn more about neural circuits and molecular science going on there. We'll see if that works. I could take a train up and hang out at the local hotel. I think I'd be welcome. And I feel badly about all the friends who I miss. One of them, Rod MacKinnon, left Harvard and went to Rockefeller, where he had a cryo-EM and won a Nobel Prize studying potassium channel structure. We had dinner at Rod's house with Bruce [Bean] two years ago, I think it was two years, on Long Island. And pledged that we would get together more frequently than every 20 years, and it's up to me to get us together. But I think my interests in individuals and in the department actually grew beyond that, to issues of the school and the university.

Gerald Fischbach (b. 1938) is an American neuroscientist and pioneering researcher. He pioneered the use of nerve cell cultures to study the electrophysiology, morphology and biochemistry of developing nerve-muscle and inter-neuronal synapses.

Listeners: Christopher Sykes

Christopher Sykes is an independent documentary producer who has made a number of films about science and scientists for BBC TV, Channel Four, and PBS.

Tags: Boston, Rod MacKinnon

Duration: 2 minutes, 24 seconds

Date story recorded: July 2023

Date story went live: 16 May 2025