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How lucky can one be? A perspective from a young scientist at the right place at the right time

Nature Medicine volume 18, pages 1486–1488 (2012)Cite this article

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How amazing to receive a call that I, along with my friends and colleagues James Spudich and Michael Sheetz, won the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. An important part of the research cited for the Lasker Award stems from a time when I was a graduate student. I was 21 years old when I first met Jim Spudich while applying to MD-PhD programs, 23 when Mike Sheetz, Tom Reese, Bruce Schnapp and I began work on axonal transport, 25 when our papers on microtubule-based transport and kinesin were published and 27 when I started my first job at UCSF. It was an extraordinary period of time. I was at the right place at the right time, hanging on tight, and enjoying the scientific ride of my life. This essay is aimed at young scientists who are starting their own journeys. I will provide a perspective and ten lessons learned from my own experiences in graduate school and travels to the discovery of kinesin.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my family, my laboratory, my UCSF colleagues, my worldwide scientific friends, the NIH and HHMI, all of whom provided me with their unique support over the years.

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  1. Ronald D. Vale is in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), University of California–San Francisco (UCSF), San Francisco, California, USA.,

    Ronald D Vale

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Correspondence to Ronald D Vale.

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Vale, R. How lucky can one be? A perspective from a young scientist at the right place at the right time. Nat Med 18, 1486–1488 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2925

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