Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Susan Gasser

2005; Elsevier BV; Volume: 15; Issue: 19 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.cub.2005.09.031

1879-0445

Susan M. Gasser,

Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Research

Susan Gasser is Director of the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, and is Professor of Molecular Biology (Ordinarius) at the University of Basel. She studied at the University of Chicago, and then the University of Basel, receiving her PhD with Gottfried Schatz for studies on mitochondrial protein import, and did a postdoc working on human chromosome structure with Uli Laemmli. From 1986 until 2001, she led a research group at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research, studying the functional implications of chromatin organization in budding yeast. From 2001–2004, she was professeur ordinaire in the Department of Molecular Biology of the University of Geneva. Other activities included nine years on the Swiss National Science Foundation Council, Vice-chair and Chair of the EMBO Council, participation in Human Frontiers’ and DFG review councils, as well as numerous editorial and advisory boards. Why did you turn to science as a career? I was a late-comer. Like most 18 year-olds I had no clue what my calling would be, a phase that lasted until I was 22. At the time, I was following the ‘Great Books’ programme at St John’s College in Annapolis. There, the combination of reading Darwin and dissecting both lungs and gills out of an overly pickled shark-like organism in a science tutorial did the trick. I learned that science can provide the perfect combination of concrete reality and the world of ideas. The leap from a dissection table to a discussion of rudimentary organs and evolution was ideal; I still love being in a lab and thinking about ways to convert biological phenomena into ideas. What are your favorite papers? There are two. One is Lee Hartwell’s 1974 paper (Genetic control of the cell division cycle in yeast. Science 183, 46–51) in which he summarized his results from the initial genetic screen for yeast cell division cycle genes. At the time I first read it, Jeff Schatz was my PhD advisor and he would hold weekly paper discussions with his two graduate students. We read and discussed Lee’s paper in depth, which was not easy given that we were totally focused on mitochondrial biochemistry and enzyme assays. The Hartwell paper unveiled for me a beautiful world of conditional mutants, and the power of epistasis and reciprocal shift experiments: I was hooked, and I still give this paper to students to read. It is timeless and accessible. The second is much less well known, but it taught me an essential lesson. It is by two Australian scientists, Hewish and Burgoyne, and was published in BBRC in 1973 (Chromatin sub-structure. The digestion of chromatin DNA at regularly spaced sites by a nuclear deoxyribonuclease. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 52, 504–510). Hewish and Burgoyne were among the first to demonstrate nucleosomal ladders in genomic DNA, a feat they achieved by replacing the Mg2+ that was generally used in nuclear isolation buffers by polyamines and EDTA. With this, they inhibited nucleases and could subsequently add Ca2+ back to reveal nucleosomes by controlled nuclease action. On a grand scale, the paper is modest, but it showed that seemingly trivial details, like EDTA in an isolation buffer, make all the difference. The trick is to learn which detail counts — and why! What about scientific heroes? Max Perutz. He was awe-inspiring, yet entirely accessible; modest, yet extremely curious. When you talked with Max, he listened to every detail, even if you were a postdoc or a student. I remember once I spoke at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, when he could not sit through the seminar because of back pain. He paced around the back of the seminar room and may even have lain down. I thought that he had missed half the talk, but once I’d wrapped up the talk he pelted me relentlessly with piercing questions. To me that is the sign of a great scientist: eternal curiosity. On top of that, Max Perutz was a remarkably talented writer. My other heroes include a set of women scientists, Ida Freund, Marie Curie, Barbara McClintock and Dorothy Hodgkin. They pursued the research that they loved and tolerated whatever they had to bear to do it, ignoring that science was not ‘something appropriate’ for women. I admire their force of character. What is your favorite meeting? My favorite is by far what we call the ‘Chromatin’ Gordon Conference at Tilton School. It occurs every other year under a different name, but always has the same argumentative, but entertaining, spirit. I have not missed one in 20 years. The themes change slightly year to year, but it handles chromatin and gene expression in its largest sense: everything from histone modifications (which were rather boring in 1986) to higher-order chromosomal organization. There is a great core of scientists who go regularly, tolerating the heat and lousy lodging to discuss vehemently until the wee hours. Ben Lewin, when Editor of Cell, used always to come to this meeting, as did a changing array of Cambridge stars. But it also is a platform for airing European strengths in chromatin research. Just great. What would you do if you were to switch fields? I would study neurobiology and neuronal circuits. This provides a four-dimensional structure-function question, much like nuclear organization. It is fascinating to me because of the behavioural read-out. And somewhere above it looms the question of how we might account for rational thought. At the FMI in Basel I do get a chance to learn about neuronal circuitry from my colleagues, but there is no time to become an expert. I can only gaze at it, think a bit, and admire it from afar. What is the best advice you received and would pass on? There are three bits of wisdom that I probably repeat too often to my colleagues. The first I heard as a graduate student from a Japanese postdoc after I had rambled on excitedly about an unexpected and controversial result. Unperturbed, he replied in a thick Japanese accent, ‘Ein Mal ist kein Mal’. He was right; in science, once doesn’t simply count. Then there is the more classic line attributed to Jacques Monod, “Chance favors the prepared mind”. I keep that one above my desk. Finally, in my current position I find a quotation from Jeff Schatz to be helpful: “It is never productive to tell a creative mind what to work on, nor how to do it: it is a sure way to prevent exciting new things from happening — in science as in art.” Your ambitions? To give the perfect seminar, to write the perfect paper. Of course my notion of what constitutes the perfect paper is in continual revision. Which is the whole point, isn’t it?