After two years of academic studies in classrooms and lecture halls, the time arrived for the initiation of my research toward a doctoral dissertation. Without any significant problems I had managed to pass the German exam for the first of the two language requirements for Graduate School. To the discomfort of the French department, I had audited a course in Scientific French and passed my examination in that Romance language, which was so similar to the Latin I had studied for four years in high school. I could not pronounce any words in French, but all a graduate student had to do was to be able to translate a passage into understandable, written English.
I also passed my qualifying examination, although my three faculty advisors did allow me to get off to a terrible start by refusing to accept my structure for benzene until I had its resonance bonds to their liking. There may be similarities in qualifying for an advanced degree and pledging a fraternity!
During those academic years, I completed the required biology classes I had missed as an undergraduate. Radiation biology, offered by the College of Veterinary Medicine located on the outer edge of the campus, provided me with useful technology for my research and a chance, on a daily schedule, to run the mile to it from a biology class on the Arts and Sciences campus.
Several new faculty members were added to the department during my early years at Cornell. They were Martin Gibbs, a plant biochemist working on photosynthesis, George Hess in protein structure, and Lemuel Wright who had discovered (and patented) mevalonic acid, even though it was a natural molecule needed in the biosynthesis of lipids, especially cholesterol and related steroids.
A fourth biochemist was also newly affiliated with the department and the Federal Nutrition Laboratory associated with the College of Agriculture. His name was Dr. Robert Holley. I had the opportunity to work as a research assistant in his Fed-Nut lab for a summer and earn some spare money ($375.00!) for the effort. His research involved transfer-RNA, which he showed was part of the biosynthesis of proteins that used DNA as their templates. (In 1968, he was co-awarded a Noble Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his work in the area.)
In the early 1960’s the recent elucidation of the spiral structure of DNA seemed overly complex for me to continue work with Dr. Holley. The biochemistry of lipids, especially of steroids, seemed more reasonablely aligned with my interests in endocrinology. I chose Dr. Wright as my mentor and began my research study toward a dissertation entitled: “The Biosynthesis of Cholesterol in the Developing Chick Embryo.” My research did not yield any world-shaking discoveries, but I did publish the results in the Journal of Lipid Research (October 1962; vol. 3, no. 4, pp 416-420.)
Egg yolk had large amounts of cholesterol (as known by anyone who consumed eggs). The view had been held that the developing chick embryo used this stored molecule rather than synthesizing it during its development; I found that this was not the case. Within a week of its fertilization, the embryo synthesized its own cholesterol from the carbon-14 labeled mevalonic acid I had injected into newly laid eggs. For several years after beginning my work, I was somewhat personally concerned about the potential incorporation of this radioactive molecule into my own steroids. Needless to say, I was very careful to follow the required protocols while exposed to any of the materials I handled.
Although the research, itself, was not earthshaking, it was enjoyable – most of the time. I even brought home a few of the non-injected control peeps that had hatched and raised them in our landlord’s garage. It was during this home experience that I really learned just how stupid chickens can be. Our landlord enjoyed receiving the grown birds for his own dinner preparation.
I also had to “candle” each egg to determine if it had been truly fertilized. To this day, I enjoy eating eggs but cannot abide any that have a blood spot. Fortunately, few modern-day eggs have that problem, one which did exist decades ago. When I began the study, I had not realized the additional effort that would be required of me to incubate fertilized eggs until the chick was born. Not being a farm-boy, I did not know that the sitting-hen kept moving her eggs beneath her so that the developing embryo would not adhere to the inside of the shell. Dr. Wright was unwilling to purchase an incubator capable of shifting the eggs automatically. Graduate student labor was much less expensive. On a recurring schedule, I had to turn the trays holding the eggs, if I wanted the embryos to live.
The action of substituting for a nesting hen occurred even at midnight (as well as in the morning and mid-afternoon, reasonable times when I would be working in the laboratory.) Meanwhile, I had instructed all of the biochemistry graduate students, who were close friends, on how to turn incubating eggs. I called the lab about midnight every day of the week to ask for help from any of them who might be working in their labs at that hour, a time not uncommon for graduate students to be engaged in their own research protocols. If no one answered the telephone, I made the drive up the hill to Savage Hall to do my own turning. Dr. Wright was not pleased when I gave my thanks to helpful graduate students in the dedication/appreciation segment of my formal dissertation. It was the least I could do. On a winter’s evening, there was little enjoyment in a thirty-minute-midnight-drive to the campus for a three-minute action of playing the role of a pseudo-hen.
I shared my laboratory space with Howard Elford, a young man from Chicago who had the appearance and voice of a Midwestern gangster. He was as interested in stocks and bonds as he was in biochemistry and could have been as successful in finance as in biochemistry. Recently, Howie had discovered a new industry in which to invest, and he did so, putting as much as he could into this company, he believed would provide a very worthwhile service and opportunity. The name of the company was Xerox.
Both Karen and I should have agreed with his viewpoint. I wrote my dissertation in longhand on yellow tablets from notes recorded in the usual, bound volumes demanded for all scientific data. Karen typed the pages on a primitive Royal typewriter – original and two carbon copies. Mis-typed products were retyped; “white out” was used judiciously. She claimed I ruined her spelling. I was never able to spell common words correctly. She could rely on my scientific vocabulary as being correct, but not on anything else. Thank God, as an English major, she was a great proofreader.
It was also during this period that I learned how to organize materials obtained from research journals. I faithfully used McBee cards, the manual technology preceding the use of computer cards for the storage of data. The system consisted of index-like cards with two rows of holes around their edges. With a special hand-tool for notching them, I devised a code to correspond to the bibliographical information for all of the scientific journal articles I had to read. A knitting-needle positioned through the holes or notches, allowed me to shake down or retain the cards I needed. In creating the code system of holes and notches, I learned the methodology later used for IBM computer cards and all that followed. This experience probably added more to my informational and organizational development than did all of the biochemical pathways I studied.
Following my defense of my dissertation, I deposited the original and a carbon-copy with the Graduate School and the Cornell Library. I accomplished this event a few days before my twenty-sixth birthday; I could claim I was twenty-five years old when I earned my Ph.D. The second carbon-copy exists somewhere in my closet.
In June 1961, I was formally awarded my Ph.D., dressed in my rented, doctoral gown with its blue trim. I wore the Cornellian Red and White hood Karen had bought for me for the occasion. I have worn it at other college commencements during my remaining, academic lifetime. It’s packed away in some dresser drawer, after its original use sixty years ago.