As a twentieth-century stranger in a twenty-first-century world, I owe many debts for the patient advice I received from experts at the cutting edge of science.
It was a privilege to visit their labs and talk to the next generation of pioneers they are training. Excitement was in the air.
Dr. Joseph Hill and his wife Dr. Deborah Anderson, both Professors of Immunology at Harvard Medical School, were a constant source of advice and information. It is, in fact, Joe’s own research on multiple-miscarrying women that he “lent” me for use by Adam. It was the opposite of plagiarism—an act of unprecedented generosity.
Dr. Jack Strominger, Higgins Professor of Biochemistry at Harvard, was patient, hospitable, and generous with his time and expertise. He knew both the dynamics of science and the psychodynamics of the world of scientists. Merely to be in his presence and hear him discourse was an education—and a pleasure. Indeed, as I was concluding this novel, yet another of his students—Dr. Richard Roberts—received a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
One of the new breed of geneticists—Dr. Tali Haran of the Technion, Haifa—was exceptionally articulate in conveying the thrill of scientific revelation.
A great discovery I made in the course of writing this book was that my Harvard classmate W. French Anderson ’58 had made medical history: on September 1, 1990, he performed the first official gene-therapy trial on a human patient.
The Anderson team at NIH successfully infused a four-year-old girl suffering from a severely compromised immune system with cells which had been altered, thus giving the promise of life to this otherwise doomed child. French has since gone on to other triumphs. He welcomed me into his lab, let me join his (unbelievably hectic) life and talk with his inspired and dedicated staff.
How could I have known that the quarter-miler with the locker next to mine would someday prove to be the Doctor of the Class?
The “humanoid mouse” that saved the Boss’s life is actually the invention of another student of Jack Strominger’s, Dr. Mike McCune of Systemix, Inc. Mike and I had many a conversation when it was five A.M. California time. True researchers, I suppose, never do sleep.
For the astronomy, physics—and his constant friendship—I have Earl Dolnick of the University of California at San Diego to thank. He has the rare gift of being able to make the most complex ideas accessible to the simplest of laymen.
And as for Stockholm, I am pleased to record my debt to Birgitta Lemmel of the Nobel Foundation—for whom no question was too difficult—or too trivial.