He was very important, and the term then was genetics and micro-organisms. It was, you know, multiply fast you could get answers in a day instead of maybe a year, you know, you could grind them up and the active molecules were just there sitting for you to study. Then I was his only student, was very important that I became his student before the first child was born. He married a... Zella Hurwitz, whose brother, Jerry Hurwitz, became quite a good biochemist and he... competing against Arthur Kornberg and never quite being... getting the respect.

I remember Jerry because he couldn't get into medical school because he was Jewish, and so became a... so many good Jewish biochemists are there because of discrimination, careful. This was, you know, the period just after the war, and some of them must have gone to Indiana, Jews from Brooklyn College or something, you know, New York Jews, because of Skinner... was in the psychology department in Indiana. So, Indiana had made a real effort in the late '20s, late '30s, to change itself from being a Southern provincial college to actually trying to be a major school, all because of two men, the dean and the president Hermie Wells. And so yeah, in the end it was really a good school. I don't think it is today, but then, you know, there is a... I mean, I don't want to say something bad about any of them, but you know, it sort of went up, and then you know, isn't in the same league as Illinois now or Michigan or Wisconsin. But they've had a series of uninspiring presidents. You can't really survive, you know, ten presidents in a row who don't live by ideas. Sets the tone.

[Q] And now, you were treated as a colleague and an independent scientist right from the start?

Yes, and that was partly, you know, because of Delbrück and theoretical physics. You came into it very early. You didn't work for someone else, you might work with someone in solving a problem, but you certainly didn't work for... underneath someone. So, the spirit of the phage forum was Delbrück wanted to be like Copenhagen in 1930. So that I really benefited from, you know, when Delbrück and Gamow were trying to sit in the front row when they were 22.