How I became a biochemist

One of the more interesting aspects of doing genealogical research on ones family is discovering what your ancestors did for a living. Having fairly successfully retraced my family tree for quite a few generations and, in some places, back nearly 400 years, I was somewhat disappointed to learn that there was very little inclination toward science to be found in my roots. Excepting the odd pirate or cattle rustler, they were pretty much a mundane collection of farmers, merchants and laborers with a few carpenters (particularly ship builders) thrown in. Thus, I can’t cite any genetic evidence that my choice of biochemistry as a pursuit was in any way preordained or even predictable. There is, however, precedent for ‘talent’ appearing (and disappearing) from generation to generation in our family – my father was an accomplished pianist/organist (although not his main profession) and his three sons, four grandchildren, and five great grandchildren seemingly did not inherit much if any of this gift. I was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts (a part of the City of Boston) in 1941, where my father had grown up, and was educated ‘across the river’ in the Milton public school system, the town where my mother had been raised. In retrospect, my formative training was sound but uninspired and was characterized by fairly provincial instruction (my mother and her sisters had many of the same teachers that I had, with syllabi that didn’t change much). With a plethora of private and parochial schools in the area, there was also something of a ‘brain drain’ with a disproportionate number of the better students, who provide stimulation and competition in the classroom, siphoned away. Since group instruction notoriously targets the middle level of a class, the combination of these factors allowed me to pass through junior and senior high school all too facilely for my own good. There would be a price to pay for this later. My high school curriculum was the standard ‘collegebound’ course, meaning biology in the 10th grade, chemistry in the 11th and physics in the 12th with nothing that remotely smacked of biochemistry anywhere to be found. Of these courses, chemistry was by far the most interesting (and probably the best taught) although frankly I can’t recall having any revelations during this class that this was what I wanted to pursue as a career choice. And it was by no means certain that I would go to college. Neither of my parents had done so and it wasn’t until my older brother (by 3þ years) entered college did the idea begin to take hold that I might go too. I also can’t lay claim to any significant self discovery events. Indeed I was far more interested in sports (particularly baseball and basketball) for which I had some modest talents but certainly no extraordinary gifts. I may have had a chemistry set (I frankly can’t remember) but if I did, I didn’t blow up myself, my brothers (more’s the pity) or the cat, discover any new elements or otherwise perform any of the types of experiments that are the stuff of child protegees. Received 2 May 2006; accepted 8 May 2006 Address correspondence to: Ralph A. Bradshaw, Department of Physiology & Biophysics, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA. E-mail: rablab@uci.edu IUBMBLife, 58(8): 495 – 498, August 2006