If you recall, I started at Cornell Medical School, where I did some work with a group in pharmacology. Walter Riker, who was a wonderful person, very kind, very thoughtful, very supportive. His theories about synaptic transmission were all wrong, but that didn't bother him, and it certainly didn't bother me. For example, he felt that the main action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine was on the nerve terminals. And that's the job I was given in my year leave of absence from medical school. I was to show that ACh had an effect on nerve terminals.

And I think I did, mostly by showing that anticholinesterase's enzymes inhibited the destruction of ACh because it increased the frequency of many mature endplate potentials, which is a subtle of presynaptic connection. It's one thing to demonstrate a presynaptic action and it's quite another to deny any postsynaptic affect.

So... of course, the scientific community, the gurus, criticized Riker, but I always was fond of him and supportive every way I could be. He gave me a lab to work in, he provided funds so I can buy equipment, and he was just very encouraging. He nominated me, and I won, the Harold G Wolfe prize for undergraduate research at Cornell. My first ego-building event. My parents couldn't believe it, but it was true.