The success of the team at the 50-year-old McArdle Laboratory may be partly due to this friendly relationship among its members. But it is the atmosphere within the laboratory that seems to spur the researchers on. The team operates without formal structure but with tremendous individual familiarity. Says senior researcher Noaman Hasan, "We are independent in our work, but there is a lot of interaction when there are problems." Adds Szybalski, "I am of the mind that one plus one equals more than two."
University of Wisconsin oncologist Waclaw Szybalski and two of his graduate students, Michael Koob and Eric Grimes, borrowed from Greek mythology to describe Achilles' heel cleavage, the bioengineering that allows them to cut long pieces of DNA in one predetermined spot. According to the myth, Achilles was rendered virtually immortal by his mother, Thetis, when she dipped him in the River Styx. She held him by ...
