Ulf Pettersson, 2003-08-20

Item — Box: AV03, miniDV: CSHL1131

Staff Only

Oral History | Ulf Pettersson

Scope and Contents

Ulf Pettersson, geneticist and virologist, is interviewed by Mila Pollock on August 20, 2003 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.

Ulf Pettersson discusses the following in his interview: Scene 1. Becoming a scientist -- Scene 2. Advice to young scientists -- Scene 3. Arriving at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory -- Scene 4. Scientific atmosphere of the James Lab -- Scene 5. Collaborators at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory -- Scene 6. Cold Spring Harbor Symposia -- Scene 7. Early work with restriction enzymes -- Scene 8. The future of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory -- Scene 9. Joe Sambrook -- Scene 10. Rich Roberts -- Scene 11. Rich Roberts' Nobel Prize -- Scene 12. Meeting Jim Watson -- Scene 13. Jim Watson, personality and influence -- Scene 14. Jim Watson, writer -- Scene 15. "Lucky Jim" -- Scene 16. Bruce Stillman -- Scene 17. The Nobel Prize -- Scene 18. Involvement in genomics -- Scene 19. Surprises in the Human Genome Project -- Scene 20. Gene patenting -- Scene 21. Dangers of genomic research -- Scene 22. Changes over time in the Human Genome Project -- Scene 23. Current research -- Scene 24. Mentoring -- Scene 25. Spirituality and science.

Dates

Creation: 2003-08-20

Creator

Pettersson, Ulf (Interviewee, Person)
Pollock, Ludmila (Interviewer, Person)
Clark, Clare (Transcriber, Person)
Viteri, Carlos (Videographer, Person)
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Library and Archives (Publisher, Organization)

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

Ulf Pettersson, geneticist and virologist, is the former vice-president of the University of Upssala in Sweden, a professor of medical genetics, and a leader of a group on genetic disease in the Department of Genetics and Pathology. His scientific research is focused on finding genes linked with diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

After finishing his medical degree in Sweden and his thesis on adenovirus proteins, he came to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He worked as a postdoc alongside Joe Sambrook and Rich Roberts. He researched transcription and the methods by which to grow and extract adenovirus DNA and studied how to use restriction enzymes to map viral chromosomes. His work led to the understanding of how the chromosome is organized and how transcription takes place. In the 80’s he slowly altered his concentration from virology to genetics.

After leaving Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1973 he became a professor of microbiology at the University of Uppsala and then chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics. He was a member of the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) (1992-1998), and is currently a member of both the Finnish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Academy of Sciences.