The Commentary "Senior Scientists Could Play A Key Role In Resolving Big Problems In Peer Review," by David Kritchevsky, and the article "Senior Scientists Face Funding Hurdles, Mandatory Retirement," by Julia King (The Scientist, Jan. 22, 1990, pages 12 and 19), deal with the very important problem of the forced retirement of senior scientists.
This waste of human resources first impressed me in 1965. I was then building director of the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building at McGill University. During the planning of the facility, a floor was set aside for the McGill-Montreal General Research Institute, a very active group led by the world-renowned biochemist J.H. Quastel. The institute was the most vigorous biomedical research group at McGill and the most productive center for training graduate students and postdocs. I worked closely with Quastel, his staff, and the building architects to design and build a research facility to their specifications. These ...
