A Brief History, continued

Jones Building. The first research building at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, built in 1893

In 1942, Demerec recruited Barbara McClintock, already acknowledged as the world leader in cytogenetics, to Cold Spring Harbor. Two years later, she became the third woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In the 1940s, McClintock began to study puzzling unstable mutations in maize, an effort that ultimately led her to describe the Ac-Ds system of transposable elements. McClintock’s findings were unconventional and unappreciated until other researchers found similar transposable elements in bacteria in the early 1970s. In 1983, McClintock received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for her studies of transposable elements.

The 1950s saw the beginning of the Laboratory’s internationally recognized summer Undergraduate Research Program. David Baltimore, who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, participated in the first class and spent the summer of 1959 performing research at the Laboratory.

In 1962, John Cairns became director and shepherded the new institution through several years of financial difficulty. In 1968, Cairns resigned to return to research, and James Watson, then a professor at Harvard University, became director. Watson was eager to change the focus of the Laboratory to the study of cancer, and one of his early coups was the 1969 hiring of a young virologist, Joseph Sambrook. Sambrook established a tumor virus group that continues to the present day.

Since the 1970s the Laboratory’s studies on cancer have flourished, and Richard Roberts who shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of split genes worked here from 1972 to 1992.

There has been a large expansion and broadening of the Laboratory’s research. The study of plants at the Laboratory was reinvigorated in the 1980s; in 1990, the Laboratory began a major research program in neuroscience while genomics became a fourth research program at the turn of the century. The research efforts of this modern era of biology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have led to many exciting discoveries, as listed in “Research Highlights: 1970–2005.”

Under Watson’s directorship, educational programs at the Laboratory flourished. In 1977, the Laboratory created the Banbury Conference Center on the estate given by Charles Robertson, and the Dolan DNA Learning Center, the first science center devoted entirely to educating the public about genetics, was established in 1988.

Procession to the inaugural convocation of the Watson School in 1999

In 1994 Bruce Stillman became director of theLaboratory and Watson its president, with their leadership today, the Laboratory has vigorous, interactive research programs in genetics, cellular and molecular biology, structural biology, developmental biology, virology, protein chemistry, cell cycle regulation, plant genetics, electrophysiology, behavior, imaging, bioinformatics, and genomics. Recent accomplishments in these fields by today’s Laboratory scientists can be found in the profiles of the research faculty.

In 1998, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s long tradition of education in the biological sciences was greatly enriched by the establishment of the Watson School of Biological Sciences. Accredited as a Ph.D. degree-granting institution by the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, on behalf of the State Education Department, the School welcomed its first class of students in September 1999 and awarded its first Ph.D. in 2003.

On April 25, 2004, exactly 51 years after the day that James D. Watson and Francis Crick published the structure of DNA, the Watson School of Biological Sciences celebrated its first Commencement and awarded six Ph.Ds to Amy Caudy, Ira Hall, Patrick Paddison, Emiliano Rial Verde, Elizabeth Thomas, and Niraj Tolia.

Elizabeth Thomas, Ira Hall, Amy Caudy, Niraj Tolia, Emiliano Rial Verde, and Patrick Paddison celebrate during Commencement 2004

On April 17, 2005, six more students graduated from the Watson School of Biological Sciences. They were: Michelle Cilia, Ahmet Denli, Elena Ezhkova, Zachary Lippman, Masafumi Muratani, and Ji-Joon Song.

Commencement 2005

April 30, 2006 was a special day for the Watson School's third class of graduates: Santanu Chakraborty, Rebecca Ewald, Chuck Kopec, Marco Mangone, and Molly Perkins.

Commencement 2006

2007

Commencement 2007

The future looks bright for the School and the students who have joined the innovative program. The Watson School has begun a new era in education at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

History, back