2010 Biophysical Society

Last night after dinner (more to come on that one) and Kate’s departure, those of us remaining went to Roger Tsien‘s talk and the awards ceremony. I have heard Roger talk several times before (I went to UCSD, after all) but I was struck by two things in this context. One: he spent the whole talk speaking about new results, and went out of his way to point out the practical issues with GFP, for which he happens to have won the Nobel Prize. There was no resting on his laurels; this forward-looking nature is really the hallmark of a great scientist and reminds me a lot of my potdoctoral advisor. Two: the basic chemistry, nanotechnology, molecular biology and imaging techniques behind his new methods for imaging cancer and assisting surgery are all quite simple and uncomplicated. The synthesis of all of this into a working whole is quite a feat, but its basic accessibility made many of us in the room whack ourselves in the head and say, hey, why didn’t I think of that?  and that is why he is the guy on the podium and we are sitting in the crowd wondering about dessert.