Joseph W. St. Geme, Jr address 2001: can one have a successful academic career in 2001?

Abstract

One of the attributes of Dr Joseph W. St. Geme, Jr, was his ability to mentor and motivate his house officers and junior faculty to engage in successful pediatric career paths.1 His presence was a huge one, both in person and in terms of his interactions with members of his pediatric family at Harbor UCLA and Colorado. He also was generous in giving credit to all who did the work that resulted in their success. It is fitting that the recipient of the Howland Award today, Dr Delbert Fisher, was a member of the Harbor UCLA faculty, and while there, his career tangent was distinguished. Joe St. Geme remains an admirable role model whose disciples and their trainees are in the audience today. It is truly humbling to receive this award. In 1910, Abraham Flexner explicitly recommended that medical schools should be formally affiliated with public or private universities. Progressively, this association has resulted in a powerful recognition of the importance of biomedical research in the community of scholarship that exists at a University.2 Ninety-one years later, in a new century, this link has become pivotal because of the impact that biological concepts will have in the 21st century. The February 15, 2001 issue of Nature 3 and the February 16, 2001 issue of Science 4 were devoted to the announcement of the completion of the Human Genome Project by 2 separate approaches (National Institutes of Health [NIH] and Celera). Several huge surprises have emerged.3,4 The human genome has approximately 30 000 genes, far fewer than the 100 000 predicted. These are only 30% more genes than the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans . There are 85 000 to 100 000 different mRNA sequences (as inferred from expressed sequence tags) or roughly 3 sequences per gene, indicating the …