Michael Ashburner, 2003-07-03
Scope and Contents
Ashburner speaks of his relationships and encounters with notable scientists during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. He remembers the laboratory of Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner at Cambridge, and a conversation he had with Barbara McClintock shortly before her death. Among others he speaks of Charlie Thomas, Alfred Tissières, David Hogness, and Arthur Kornberg. His recollections are of meetings and courses which took place at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, various Cold Spring Harbor Symposia, his work on the response of Drosophila to heat shock, and the collaborative tradition among Drosophila biologists.
Table of Contents
- Cold Spring Harbor: Symposium on the transcription of genetic material
- Charlie Thomas
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: cytogenetics course
- Drosophila genetics course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- Present and future of CSHL
- Sydney Brenner
- Francis Crick
- Laboratory of Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner
- Francis Crick and Sydney Brenner's influence
- 1985 CSHL Symposium and sequencing ADH
- David Hogness
- Arthur Kornberg
- Arthur Kornberg: Symposium: Santiago, Chile
- Alfred Tissières and Herschel Mitchell
- Response of Drosophila to heat shock
- Alfred Tissières: protein induction by heat shock
- Recruitment to Harvard
- Matt Meselson
- Competition in science
- Competition vs. cooperation in science
- Barbara McClintock, personality
- A meeting with Barbara McClintock
- Barbara McClintock: feminist icon?
- Writing science: Drosophila book
- Calvin Bridges
- Ed Lewis: personal life and ambition
- Edward Novitsky
Dates
- Creation: 2003-07-03
Creator
- Ashburner, M (Interviewee, Person)
- Pollock, Ludmila (Interviewer, Person)
- Haslinger, Kiryn (Interviewer, Person)
- Liu, Daniel, 1985- (Writer of supplementary textual content, Person)
- Viteri, Carlos (Videographer, Person)
- Clark, Clare (Transcriber, Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Portions of this collection have been digitized and are available online: https://library.cshl.edu/oralhistory/. Select tapes have been digitized thanks to support from CLIR Recordings at Risk Grant awarded in 2021, these tapes are available for research online via our Oral History Website and in person at CSHL Archives. Please contact CSHL Archives archives@cshl.edu with any questions regarding availability.
Biographical / Historical
Michael Ashburner was born on May 23, 1942, in Brighton, Sussex, England, and was educated at Cambridge. He received his B.A. (1964), M.A. (1968), Ph.D. (1968) and Sc.D. (1978) from the University of Cambridge, where he is currently Emeritus Professor of Biology in the Department of Genetics and a Professional Fellow of Churchill College. He was formerly the joint head of the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) and of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). Ashburner was also co-founder of "Flybase", the primary online database for Drosophila genetics and molecular biology, the "Gene Ontology Consortium", an effort to coordinate biological databases through a defined taxonomy of gene function, and the Crete Meetings, a bi-annual event focusing on the developmental and molecular biology of Drosophila melanogaster. Among many honors, he is the recipient of the G.J. Mendel Medal (Czech Republic 1998) and the George W. Beadle Medal (Genetics Society of America 1999).
Extent
1 Optical Disks : DVD ; 66 min.
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
General
Interview recorded on Mini DV, then transferred to DVD. Interview transcribed by Clare Clark. DVD authoring and editing by Carlos Viteri. An earlier interview with Michael Ashburner was recorded on May 31, 2003. That interview is also part of the Cold Spring Harbor Oral History Project . See title: Talking science with Michael Ashburner [first interview].
Subject
- Brenner, Sydney (Person)
- Bridges, Calvin B. (Calvin Blackman), 1889-1938 (Person)
- Crick, Francis, 1916-2004 (Person)
- Gehring, W. J. (Walter J.), 1939- (Person)
- Hogness, David (Person)
- Kornberg, Arthur, 1918-2007 (Person)
- Lewis, Edward B., 1918-2004 (Person)
- McClintock, Barbara, 1902-1992 (Person)
- Tissières, Alfred (Person)
Repository Details
Part of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives Repository
Library & Archives
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
One Bungtown Rd
Cold Spring Harbor NY 11724 USA
516-367-6872
archives@cshl.edu