Known not only for her ability as a researcher but also for her skill at explaining to both her colleagues and the public what she does, Susan Lindquist was recently awarded Sigma Xi's recognition for outstanding science and science communication, the 2006 William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement. The prize brings further recognition for Lindquist, a biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, who has built her career studying protein misfolding, its consequences to cells, and its role in diseases such as Alzheimer's and mad cow. Her laboratory was the first to show how prions can self-propagate in a form of protein-only inheritance, and she has used her research platform to communicate that understanding to colleagues and diverse groups of nonscientists. She recently answered three questions from The Scientist about communicating science.
Q: What drives you to make complex science understandable?
A: I take ...
