Throughout the years that I've been at Harvard Medical School, I've had the privilege of working outside the school in a range of activities. I spoke earlier about my involvement in the effort to apprise people of the implications of a nuclear exchange.
I was earlier approached by a family in New York, a member of which, a child in this family, had epilepsy and I was asked what they might do, since they have considerable means, to address the problem. I told them that in my view, this was in the late 60s, the field of neurobiology was opening up and that if they would... were willing to provide Fellowship support for young people going into the field, they might thereby move our understanding of the basis for epilepsy considerably. They... and I offered to support my position about this by introducing them to two young colleagues who had just come to Harvard - Torsten Wiesel and David Hubel.
Torsten and David and I had lunch with the Klingenstein brothers and a year later, or two years later, when they won the Nobel Prize, my stock soared with them and, but even in advance of that they had agreed to set up a Fellowship program in neurobiology, and it remains one of the programs in the country that provides support for young people going into the field. It has been an extremely important program in that sense.
A short time later, I was approached by another family, wife of the man involved had died of breast cancer, and he wanted to do something in that field. I offered to him the same prescription that I offered to the Klingensteins, that is to bet on young people, to help them train, and they... he agreed. In this instance, I used as a colleague, Jim Watson, and we set up a program called the Rita Allen Program which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary, and it provides support for young people who are going into research careers in not only cancer, but into multiple sclerosis that also a problem that existed in his family.
And, even more recently, now 15 years ago, I was approached by the John Merck Fund to offer advice concerning a way of addressing a problem that confronted John Merck. John Merck was the son of the person who started the Merck drug company, George Merck, and Mrs Merck was eager to do something on behalf of the problem that confronted John Merck. He had severe... he had an early age - age two or three - had severe encephalitis, as I was told, which left him with both a terrible learning disability and a severe personality problem. The John Merck Scholars program which we set up 15 years ago, has attracted young... brilliant young people who have... many of whom have made a mark; the first of our selections won a Nobel Prize last year.
Each of these programs is fashioned in a way that almost cannot fail, that is to say, instead of opening the option of applying to the program to all comers, we go to the universities to where there are strong programs in these areas and tell them that there are scholarships, fellowships available, but that each university can nominate only one person, or perhaps two. And, as a result, Harvard finds itself, or its people, in competition with young faculty from Yale and Stanford and the University of Chicago, and eager to get support for these people, obviously puts forward very strong people. So, the committees in each instance are able to pick from individuals who are almost destined to do creditable work and to become, in many instances, leaders in the field. Those activities have been ones that I've welcomed an opportunity to take part in.
