Postdoctoral Research Project Research Articles

Genetic Suppressors and Recovery of Repressed Biochemical Memory

Many of the Reflections articles in this journal have focused on particular biological problems that the authors have devoted their careers to or on particular techniques that have facilitated their biological studies. Although I began my career as a biochemist, one of the most common threads to my research has been the exploitation of a genetic approach, the analysis of suppressor mutations. Particularly in the last 20 years, the success of this approach has led me into biological problems that required a remembering or relearning of my early training in biochemistry. This article will describe the voyage from chemistry and biochemistry to genetics and then to a recovery of remnants of my biochemical memory. As a graduate student working under Lowell Hager at Harvard in the late 1950s, my thesis research was chemical and biochemical, as I performed the chemical synthesis and studied the biosynthesis of the chlorinated mold product caldariomycin (2,2-dichloro-1,3-cyclopentanediol) (1–3). With his postdoctoral fellow Paul Shaw, Lowell had discovered an enzyme, chloroperoxidase, that was capable of utilizing chloride ion to chlorinate organic compounds (4). Part of my work was to determine how this enzyme might be involved in the biosynthesis of caldariomycin. Apparently, the work became somewhat well known. This I learned when, toward the end of my Ph.D. work, I attended a FASEB meeting in Atlantic City to give a short presentation. As I walked into the conference center on the first day, a scientist passing by me stopped to look at my badge, hesitated a moment, and then commented “Beckwith... hmmm, oh yes, I remember... chlorination!” Despite this really quite limited chemical/biochemical notoriety, I became more and more fascinated by bacterial genetics in graduate school. I proceeded to do postdoctoral work in several bacterial genetics laboratories.

Reply to the discussion by S. André and A.J. Schleiss on "Flow over a stepped chute with and without macro-roughness elements"

Kokpinar 1009 The author thanks the discussers for their scientific comments and additional references regarding the effect of strip roughness elements on the flow characteristics of stepped chutes. However, it was not noticed by the discussers that the Ph.D. thesis of Boes (2000) itself was cited, instead of the researcher’s later two contributions in 2003. In 2000 and 2001 (6 months), the author executed his post-doctoral research project at LCH-EPFL, with the financial support given by the Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey. At the completion of the research program, the author offered (to the discussers) to submit a paper to a journal. After the preparation of a draft copy by the author, it was sent to the discussers to solicit their comments. Initially, the discussers intended to be co-authors on this paper; however later the discussers declined, following a discussion on the second draft. The author would also like to remind the discussers’ of a 1 May 2002 dated and officially signed letter. In this formally signed letter from the discussers, it was stated and honestly declared that (i) the paper is scientifically valuable and an original work from the author’s post-doctoral research project, (ii) it was suggested to use the discussers’ suggestions and to provide reference to a conference paper by the discussers, (iii) the discussers did not really contribute to this paper, (iv) it was suggested to submit the paper as only the author’s own work, (v )i t is sufficient to state the names of the discussers in the acknowledgment part of the paper, and (vi) since the “energy dissipation” part of the paper was directly related to Stephanie Andre’s Ph.D. work, it was suggested to remove this part from the paper. Since the discussers permitted the author to submit this paper and provided additional pictures (related to Fig. 1 used by the author for unrestricted use in his post-doctoral research project) the author, naturally, did not ask further permission.

List of Contributors

29 Review of Central and East European Law 2004 No.3, 433-434 © 2004 Koninklijke Brill N.V. Printed in The Netherlands List of Contributors Rilka Dragneva is a member of the Institute of East European Law and Rus- sian Studies, Faculty of Law, Leiden University. At present, she is engaged in a post-doctoral research project on the process of legal harmonization within the CIS, and teaches on International Commercial Contracts and Corporate Governance with Leiden’s International Business Law LL.M. Program. Rilka Dragneva graduated in law from the University of Sofi a, Bulgaria, and holds a Masters’ and Doctorate degree from the