In 1990 Susumu Tonegawa, winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, decided that he'd like to make something of a career change. Tonegawa, who won for his findings on the mechanism of antibody diversity and antigen recognition, chose to move away from his vocation as an immunologist and pursue a longtime fascination with neuroscience. He sought, in effect, to shift the focus of his entire lab.
Nine years later, the conversion is complete: Tonegawa recently sent out his last immunology graduate student. But how did he and his immunologist labmates garner the know-how and tools necessary to make the switch? And how did these neuroscience newcomers, seemingly starting from scratch, gain the respect of their neuroscientist peers?
![]() The research team includes, clockwise from left, Arvind Govindarajan, Tom McHugh, Susumu Tonegawa, and Chanel Lovett. |