Alfred Tissières, 2001-06-04
Scope and Contents
Alfred Tissières, biologist, biochemist and geneticist, is interviewed by Mila Pollock and Jan Witkowski on June 4, 2001, at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.
Alfred Tissières discusses the following in his interview:
Scene 1. Jim Watson -- Scene 2. The Molteno Institute, Cambridge, England -- Scene 3. Caltech -- Scene 4. Max Delbrück and Salvador Luria -- Scene 5. Return to Cambridge, England -- Scene 6. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts -- Scene 7. Jim Watson, Francis Crick, and the double helix -- Scene 8. Jim Watson at Harvard -- Scene 9. Jim Watson, the writer: "The molecular biology of the gene" and "The double helix" -- Scene 10. Jacques Monod, Paris -- Scene 11. Jim Watson, Director of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: "Lucky Jim" -- Scene 12. Jim Watson in his youth.
Dates
- Creation: 2001-06-04
Creator
- Tissières, Alfred (Interviewee, Person)
- Witkowski, J. A. (Jan Anthony), 1947- (Interviewer, 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
Alfred Tissières (1917-2003), biologist, biochemist and geneticist, received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge for his work at the Molteno Institute and subsequently did postdoctoral work on respiratory enzymes at Caltech under Max Delbrück. Soon after returning to Cambridge, Watson suggested he come to Harvard to work on microsomal particles in E. coli. At Harvard, Tissieres and Jim discovered that ribosomes were made of two unequal pieces, each containing protein and RNA. Tissières began a professorship at the University of Geneva where his laboratory has become prominent in the field of ribosome research. Alfred first attended a symposium at Cold Spring Harbor in 1961 and when Jim became director, Tissières would regularly visit with his family during the summer.
Extent
2 Cassettes (Camcorder footage) : Hi-8 - CSHL1313, CSHL1314
2 VHS (Working copies) : 2032 TISSIERES_ALFRED_2001_01 [01:01:15] unedited; 2032 TISSIERES_ALFRED_2001_02 [01:01:58] unedited, duplicate of TISSIERES_ALFRED_2001_01
1 Cassettes (Talking science with Alfred Tissières) : DVD ; 67 min
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
General
VHS digitized in 2021 by CLIR RAR Grant.
Subject
- Crick, Francis, 1916-2004 (Person)
- Delbrück, Max (Person)
- Monod, Jacques Louis, 1910-1976 (Person)
- California Institute of Technology (Organization)
- Luria, S. E. (Salvador Edward), 1912-1991 (Person)
- Watson, James D., 1928- (Person)
- Doty, Paul M., 1920-2011 (Person)
- Keilin, David, 1887-1963 (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