Jim Watson: Encouraging Young Scientists

[Bruce Roe]

It is fitting that Jim is penning a new book tentatively entitled Manners and Rules for Scientists. I vividly recall presenting my first paper at a Cold Spring Harbor meeting some years ago when I was a young Assistant Professor and remembering how even more nervous I became when I realized Jim was sitting in the first row. Afterwards I summoned the courage to introduce my self to him and since then I have always admired how attentive and encouraging he is to young scientists. I also recall a discussion we had outside of the cafeteria when the announcement of draft sequence of the human genome was one of the main topics of the annual CSH genome meeting, where Jim questioned if we were giving the correct message to new, bright, young scientists and if they would be continuing to study genomics now that the sequence of the human genome was essentially completed. Our fears we quickly put to rest with the onslaught of several young post-docs who passed us whom we overheard discussing new experiments planned for this post genomics error and their anticipation of what was for dinner.