An Interview with Elaine Strass - The American Society of Human ...

street, I didn’t see many Nobel Prizewinners!But I do now!And one of the biggest thrills at GSA thisyear has been the realization that GSA hasbeen making awards, and the recipientsthen go on to win the Nobel Prize. TheGSA Medal went to Bob Horvitz and thenhe won the Nobel, and then to Andy Fire,and he won the Nobel. John Sulston wasanother awardee, and then he won theNobel. This year we awarded OliverSmithies, and he just won the Nobel! Webeat the Nobel to it! It made us feel terrific.The GSA has three awards traditionally.There was the Thomas Hunt MorganAward, which is a medal and it’s beengiven since the early 60s, and there is apicture of a fly on the medal and on theother side is Thomas Hunt Morgan’sportrait—4.5 inches in diameter, madeout of pewter. And this is the big one.You get this award when you have shownlifetime contributions to the field of geneticresearch.The GSA Medal was developed a fewyears later. Why should we have to waitfor a whole lifetime for contributions tooccur before we can honor someone? Theidea for the GSA Medal was a breakthroughwithin the last 15 years. And thatwas the one that Horvitz won, forapoptosis, programmed cell death. Hehad other things, too. It was not difficultto give Bob that award!And Oliver Smithies, of course, for hisgreat contributions—he got the ThomasHunt Morgan Medal for lifetime contributions.JG: So the GSA Medal is like the CurtStern Award that ASHG gives.ES: Yes, it’s the parallel to that.GSA wanted to honor people, startingabout six years ago, for service to thecommunity. It’s called the George W.Beadle award. We have people who havemade enormous contributions, who havemade the lives of the scientists so mucheasier and even possible. Like, if you ran astock center for 20 years, you might notget a scientific award, but, my goodness,your donation to the community is soenormous! So that’s why the BeadleAward was developed and every year wecome up with some really great winners.JG: With GSA having all these separatemeetings, how do they coalesce to makedecisions about things?ES: It’s a good question. Let’s take astep back and look at the bigger picture.We have different models for societies.We have Society for Neuroscience with48,000 members. When they have ameeting and 34,000 people come, the cityknows that they are there because theyhave taken every single hotel room. Theyhave so many poster presentations thatthey have a complete poster session in themorning, then they take it down andanother complete one goes up in theafternoon, and that goes on for five days.The scale is different from both ASHGand GSA.There is a drawback there becausewhen you go to meeting of that size, it’shard to run into people. They havespecialties, too, but they elected to keepeverything together. I remember when Iworked there, there was always the threatthat the behavior neuroscientists wouldsplit off! ‘‘We don’t like the way the boardis treating us and we’re going to split off!’’But they never split off.Still you know where you fit in, yourlittle corner in the very large meeting.ASHG is kind of in the middle. We gettogether once a year, we know we canbump into people we want to bump into.We have little cubbyholes to leave messages.However, we also have American Societyfor Gene Therapy, NSGC (NationalSociety of Genetic Counselors), HUGO(Human Genome Organization), theAmerican College of Medical Genetics—all these other groups who are very close toASHG. But the ASHG meeting is theresearch meeting, and we have chosen notto do the neuroscience route, which is toinclude everyone at one meeting.The way I interpret it—genetics isnature’s way of making diversity, and that’swhat we’ve got in the genetics community.All these organism guys, they reallydon’t want to meet with each other. Theyeast guys don’t want to meet with theworm guys and and they don’t want to bewith the fungal guys. They call Clamydamonasguys the ‘‘pond scum’’ guys. TheDrosophilists have their own wonderfulcommunity. They have their own board ofdirectors, even though they are notincorporated. It’s very loose, they don’thave to file reports.So the question is—could there be areally large model organism meeting? Itwould be about 9,000 people, and I’vegiven this a lot of thought. Possibly serialoverlapping meetings. But nobody is hotto do that. They like their small meetings,which are very predictable, good ways forstudents to present their first poster or talk,and to teach students how it is done—howto meet the right people and publish.JG: So, with all these independentmeetings, how does GSA come together?ES: There is the journal Genetics. GSAwas started in 1931 and the journal in1916! And all of those old issues are on theJournal Web site through Highwire Press.So the Journal acts like a coalescing factor.And the GSA board has been discussingthis for years, and that why they came upwith the Model Organism to HumanBiology (MOHB) meeting, which meetsin San Diego every other January.This was actually a decision made whileMark Johnston, a yeast researcher, waspresident of the GSA, and he happens tobe a very visionary person. He, along withmany others on the board, the Drosophilists,thought it was time to bring thingstogether. Part of it had to do with the factthat everything is getting sequenced, andthis made a huge difference in the way welook at genetics research and the future asgeneticists and genomicists. There’s a lotmore that we have in common because ofthese important features. And the Journalsacknowledge this, but having a meetingwhere you have the human and theDrospholist and all talking about the samegene—in yeast and worm.At the last MOHB meeting, I wasfloored.JG: So you went to the sessions?ES: I always go to the sessions. I don’tknow how I can understand them, becauseI’m not trained as a geneticist. To me,genetics is the mechanics of the tinkertoysof life. It’s a huge puzzle and I love the ideathat it could be decoded, that it could besequenced. The idea that somebody wouldinvent PCR. I understand enough to seethe wonder of all this.JG: You’re tearing up!ES: I’m just an old sentimental fool.To see the changes in the field! I’malmost an outsider. I don’t understandenough to really appreciate everythingthat’s going on, but when somebody getsthe Nobel Prize, I understand.JG: Why are you retiring?ES: Well, I’m more aged than I look!I’ve got old arteries. I have to take care ofmyself. This is a big job. A $9M budget—two budgets! And a lot of travel, if you goto all the meetings. I go to everything—Iwouldn’t miss anything—it’s too exciting!And that’s a problem I have; if I could stepback and not be as involved, it would bebetter for me. I can’t seem to do that! So, Iannounced two years ago that I was goingto retire.There are other things I want to do. Goback to music and work in the community.I’m starting a business called ‘‘Dial-a-Daughter.’’ I will take old people whocan’t drive any more who want to dothings with me, like go to the opera or outto lunch. I will devote my time to helpingthese people live.PLoS Genetics | www.plosgenetics.org 3 2008 | Volume 4 | Issue 2 | e1000002

This will be my new life, and I of coursewill continue to be a member of GSA andASHG.There are so many people who havehelped me—these people are wonderful. Iadore geneticists! Warm people who justhelped me understand anything I didn’tunderstand and helped me get through thethings I wanted to get through. This hasbeen a real ‘‘love in,’’ for all these years.For me, it’s the end of an era, and whenI look back on my life, this has been thebest part of it. There is no question thatwhat I have here is rewarding andexciting—it’s a dream job, and it’s allbecause of these two societies.PLoS Genetics | www.plosgenetics.org 4 2008 | Volume 4 | Issue 2 | e1000002