Phage Course: Remembering Alexander (Leshek) Kohn

[Waclaw Szybalski]

I first met Leshek in the Summer of 1951 when we enrolled in the now famous Phage Course at Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA. Quickly, we developed a deep friendship. During that time at Cold Spring Harbor, I also met Karl Maramorosch, a plant virologist of the Rockefeller institute in New York...Both Karl and I admired Leshek's wonderful sense of humor and tried to compete with him (not very successfully) both in science and the gaiety of the unforgettable summer of 1951. The more level-headed and glamorous wife of Karl, Irena, tried sometimes to temper the activites of our triumverate, saying "you are all just the same, totally irresponsible," but her success was limited, since even the leaders of the phage group, including Max Delbrück and Sal Luria, were practical jokers.

It would take a volume to describe all the activites of the Cold Spring Harbor summer of 1951. Some of the products were Leshek's numerous cartoons, now framed and gracing the walls of Blackford Hall in Cold Spring Harbor as 'historical documents'.