- Subtitle:
- Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences: Lester F. Lau
- Series:
- Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences
- Topic:
-
Science, Medicine, and Technology
- Interviewer:
- Hathaway, Neil D.
- Interviewee:
- Lau, Lester F.
- Supporting Documents:
- Records relating to the interview are located in the office of the UCLA Library's Center for Oral History Research.
- Length:
- x, 258 leaves : portrait, index.
- Language:
- English
- Copyright:
- Regents of the University of California, UCLA Library.
- Series Statement:
- Interviews in this series, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, document the research of "outstanding scientists from quality institutions" chosen by the Pew Scholars Program to receive four-year stipends.
- Abstract:
- Childhood in Hong Kong; family moves to Brooklyn; attends City College of New York; decides to pursue a career in science; enters graduate school at Purdue University; pursues molecular biology at Cornell University; research in Ray Wu's laboratory; works with Jeffrey W. Roberts; studying DNA transcription and termination; studies yeast genetics in Gerald R. Fink's lab; creates a double-mutation yeast strain; postdoctorate in molecular biology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Daniel Nathans's lab; genesis and impact of Nathans's work on simian virus 40; receives a Helen Hay Whitney Fellowship; studying cell cycle regulation; differential hybridization; the politics of scientific publishing; peer review; grant review sections; status of women and minorities in science; reasons for leaving Nathans's lab; accepts a position at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago; setting up a new lab; role of basic research in a medical school; teaching duties of research biologists; moves to the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Chicago; sequencing cDNAs; determining gene function; learning to make transgenic mice; plans to explore a genetics approach to isolating immediate-early genes.