A. James Hudspeth
Professor of Neuroscience, Rockefeller University Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical InstituteZACH VEILLEUX, DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITYWhen he was 11 and 12, James Hudspeth spent his summers working in a Texas law firm, a job arranged by his lawyer father. But Hudspeth already knew he would never become an attorney. “I’ve been a scientist as long as I can remember,” he says. He pleaded with his parents to find him a job with a science bent and spent the following three summers working for his first scientific mentor—Peter Kellaway, a neurophysiologist at Baylor College of Medicine. “He was a stunning role model for a kid. I was very impressed by his seriousness and his sense of purpose.” Hudspeth worked first as a histology technician and then in an electronics shop, soldering EEG electrodes for use in medical school courses.
The jobs also gave Hudspeth a sneak peek at medicine in action. During his lunch break, he would surreptitiously sneak up into the observation dome above the hospital’s surgical theater and watch open-heart surgery while he ate his lunch. “It was so grand. This was the hospital where open-heart surgery techniques were pioneered,” says Hudspeth. “There were four surgical theaters, and surgeon Michael DeBakey would go clockwise from room to room doing the critical parts of surgeries. I would tag along with my sandwich. Fourteen-year-olds were not supposed to be there, and especially not eating a tuna sandwich!”
“The hope is that we can restore hearing in humans by regenerating hair cells in our own ears, basically by hijacking the molecular program that made the ...
