Honorary degrees go to three Rockefeller alumni

by TALLEY HENNING BROWN

Alongside the 26 students who marched in cap and gown to receive their diplomas and graduate hoods on June 12, three Rockefeller alumni returned to the stage where years ago they defended their own dissertations. At this year’s Convocation ceremony, honorary doctor of science degrees were presented to plant geneticist and government science adviser Nina V. Fedoroff, class of 1972; ion channel pioneer Bertil Hille, class of 1967; and Nobel laureate Gerald M. Edelman, class of 1960.

Dr. Fedoroff, presented first among the three, is science and technology adviser to United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and to the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. One of the first plant molecular biologists, she studied in the laboratory of Norton Zinder. She worked at the Carnegie Institution of Washington and Johns Hopkins University before joining The Pennsylvania State University, where she is currently on leave from her position as the Willaman Professor of Life Sciences and Evan Pugh Professor, the university’s most prestigious professorship. During her early career, Dr. Fedoroff produced one of the first complete gene sequences, pioneered the application of molecular techniques to plants and cloned some of the first plant genes. More recent research has focused on the phenomenon of gene regulation by small RNA molecules, as well as on genes that contribute to plants’ ability to protect themselves from environmental stressors.

A member of the National Academy of Sciences and the recipient of a 2006 National Medal of Science, Dr. Fedoroff spoke to the audience in Caspary Auditorium, with a particular message for the women graduates, about the relationship between challenges confronted in the laboratory and those encountered outside it. “I’ve had the incredible good fortune of participating in the molecular revolutions of the late 20th century,” she said. “Ph.D.s, of course, are beginnings, not endings.… Don’t shy away from the difficulties; you could have it all.”

Bertil Hille is Wayne E. Crill Endowed Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. A student of Clarence Connolly, Dr. Hille is widely regarded as one of the foremost authorities on ion channels, an essential component of the nervous system, as they regulate the flow of ions across cell membranes, serving to control nerve impulses and mediate electrical conduction across synapses. Following degrees from Yale University and Rockefeller, Dr. Hille worked in the laboratories of prominent British physiologists Alan Hodgkin and Richard Keynes before joining the University of Washington, where he has been a professor since 1974.

For his work, Dr. Hille shared the 1999 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the 2001 Gairdner Foundation International Award, with, among others, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor Roderick MacKinnon. In his remarks to the graduating students, he exhorted that “the Rockefeller University experiment has succeeded, and in that sense, these honorary degrees are conferred for all the hundreds of graduates [of the university] and for all of our mentors. We three stand for all of them.”

Gerald Edelman, a graduate of Henry Kunkel’s laboratory and a member of the university’s second graduating class, is director of The Neurosciences Institute and president of the institute’s publicly supported not-for-profit parent organization, the Neurosciences Research Foundation. He also currently serves as professor and chairman of the department of neurobiology at The Scripps Research Institute.

Dr. Edelman has made significant contributions in the fields of biophysics, protein chemistry, immunology, cell biology and neurobiology, and his early investigations on the structure and diversity of antibodies led to the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1972. Through his research into the regulation of primary cellular processes in the 1970s, he discovered cell adhesion molecules, which guide the development of an animal’s shape and form as well as its nervous system. Dr. Edelman is also the author of the theory of neuronal group selection, a Darwinian explanation of brain development based on neural plasticity in response to environment and experience. The author of several books on brain function and human consciousness, he has become in recent years a leading figure in the emerging field of synthetic neural modeling.

Born in New York City, Dr. Edelman earned a B.S. at Ursinus College in 1950 and an M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1954 and came to Rockefeller in 1958. He earned a Ph.D. in two years and then remained as assistant, associate and then Vincent Astor Professor, until leaving Rockefeller in 1992 to head The Neurosciences Institute. During his time here, he also served as assistant and then associate dean of graduate studies. To the class of 2008, Dr. Edelman pressed the importance of one particular component of the scientific endeavor: “Science is imagination in the service of verifiable truth. [It] is in fact a critical component in science, one that will last you your whole life if you’re willing to dwell on it and throw away any kinds of judgments that are based on sheer bureaucracy. And in fact, there are some times when imagination leads to a world change.”

For transcripts of the honorees’ remarks, visit www.rockefeller.edu/convocation.