ALAN ADEREM
President, Seattle BioMed
Professor of immunology and medicine, University of Washington Cofounder, Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, WashingtonCOURTESY OF SEATTLE BIOMEDBorn and raised in South Africa during the apartheid era (1948–1994), Alan Aderem became increasingly politically active—an underground involvement that put his science career in jeopardy. “I didn’t know what the future would hold. I was regularly being arrested. There was conscription for white males, and I knew I was going to refuse to go, so all that uncertainty made me not really think ahead too far about my science.”
Aderem experienced apartheid firsthand. “I remember very well that there could be 100 blacks waiting in line and as a little white kid walking into a store, they would serve me first. I had a black woman who looked after me that I considered a second mother, and I couldn’t figure out why she was a second-class citizen. That stuff bothered me and drove me to politics,” he says. By the end of high school, Aderem was participating in student protests—and getting arrested for it. At university, together with friends, Aderem started a workers’ advice program that evolved into a black trade union. Aderem also edited a community newspaper called Phambili, which was circulated within Cape Town’s black townships.
“I wanted congruence in my life, ...
