Nancy Kleckner became smitten with genetic material as a high school student during the early 1960's, in the dawning of molecular genetic research. "DNA is intrinsically interesting," says Kleckner, now a professor in Harvard's department of molecular and cellular biology (MCB). In addition to being the basis of all life on earth, she says DNA "has a pleasing aesthetic quality to it in terms of how the molecule is designed."
As an undergraduate at Harvard, Kleckner worked with Matt Meselson in a department that was progenitor of MCB. While there, she learned how to think about science. "For me, the most important thing you learn from the people with whom you study is how they think about science," she says. "And Matt is high on the list of people who think about science in really interesting ways."
Kleckner took that lesson to heart. "She's extremely bright and extremely innovative," says ...
