 |
|
 |
Perspectives
Successful Synergy - by
Michael Caplan
What attracted
me to the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, and what
has kept me here throughout my professional career, is the simple fact
that people talk to each other. This is a Department composed of scientists
representing a wide variety of backgrounds, outlooks and interests.
Cell biologists, biophysicists, molecular biologists and biochemists
(among many others) are all co-mingled among our faculty, postdocs and
students. Despite this diversity, however, communication flourishes-scientists
talk to one another. There are no field lines and there are no stature
boundaries. The most junior student talks to the most senior professor
and the most biophysical patch clamper talks to the most morphology-minded
cell biologist. From all of this interchange arises a remarkable synergy-collaborative
experiments are hatched around the cookie tray and new ways of thinking
about old problems emerge from winter walks around Woods Hole's Nobska
light house during the Departmental Retreat. Physiology is not a single
discipline-it is a crazy-quilt of approaches applied to the problem
of how organisms persist in a hostile world. It is simultaneously a
molecular, cellular and whole systems-oriented science. The collection
of people in this Department, and the culture of communication which
unites them, creates an environment well suited to the investigation
of such enormous questions. The atmosphere of spontaneous and informal
interaction which characterizes this Department is (at least in my experience)
a rare and precious thing that has made working here a joy.
|
 |