It was the Vietnam War that led Martin Raff to a life in science. He was knee-deep in a neurology residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston when rumors suggested that America’s draft law would soon change, making immigrant physicians like Raff eligible until age 35. “I would have been sent to Vietnam for sure,” he says. Instead, Raff hotfooted it to Canada (he was born in Montreal), traded in his green card, and returned as an exchange visitor. The revised status excused Raff from military service—but it meant he had to leave the United States when his neurology training was complete.
That’s when a friend sent him a one-page Science article about immunology research at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, in London. Raff was intrigued, but colleagues told him that Mill Hill—home of luminaries like Peter Medawar—would be tough to get into. “So I went ...
