Memories of Carl from an improbable friend

The Tower Room in the Beckman Institute goes silent as all heads turn to the door. An unearthly figure in a full neck brace strides into the room and takes a seat at the end of the long conference table. Already seated are representatives of the W. M. Keck Foundation, the Provost, several Deans, myself, and a few others from the campus. The site visit by the foundation was the moment of truth that would determine whether we would receive a $1.25 million grant to launch the W. M. Keck Center for Comparative and Functional Genomics at the University of Illinois. Although we knew Carl’s participation was critical, none of us from the university expected Carl to attend, because the previous day he had fallen from a ladder and badly injured his neck. Earlier during the meeting, when Roxane Ford from the Foundation asked, “Where is Professor Woese?” we had to apologize for him being unable to attend because of the accident. It was clear that Roxane was disappointed and wanted to hear directly from Carl about the significance of “phylogenomics,” which would be the scientific theme of the proposed Center. Until that moment, our bid was on the ropes without having Carl weigh in. I was the PI on the grant, but Roxane clearly wanted to hear from Carl. Carl, in obvious discomfort, is sitting erect, his head held in place by a medieval plastic sleeve that pushes his chin toward the ceiling. Roxane welcomes him and asks, “So Professor Woese, what does phylogenomics mean to you?” All heads turn to Carl. He takes a long breath, closes his eyes, and delivers an unrehearsed statement, a stream of scientific consciousness that blows the intellectual socks off everyone in the room. We all sit in stunned silence for a moment, knowing that Carl had just done something extraordinary. Something up until that time, given his reputation, no one would have expected him to do. In that frozen moment in time, we knew that the day had been one won. Two months later, I received a check in the mail for $1.25 million dollars. And that is how the genomics revolution at the University of Illinois was born back in 1997, a revolution that 10 y later led to the opening of the $75 million Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB)—Carl’s physical and intellectual home until his death in 2012. How did it happen? What led Carl to weighing in for me and for the campus on that fateful day? It is hard story to begin, knowing that it is impossible to convey the full depth of our relationship. In his later years, I probably knew Carl better than anyone, save for Nigel Goldenfeld who began his connection with Carl several years later. Carl had always said that our friendship was improbable. Indeed, that was true. I, a young faculty member in the Department of Animal Sciences working in cattle genetics, and Carl, nearly 30 y my senior, and a world-famous physicist-turned-microbiologist who had made one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century. We had very little in common other than an intense passion for science. But over the course of the next 15 y, our lives were inextricably linked through a chain of truly extraordinary events. It started with visits to Carl’s laboratory after I had been asked in 1996 to serve as the Director of the University of Illinois Biotechnology Center. I had heard about Carl from the microbiologists in my department, Marv Bryant (a giant in his own right), Bryan White, and Rod Mackie. My own research was taking on more of an evolutionary bent, as our work on developing detailed comparative maps of mammalian genomes rapidly progressed. I wanted to meet Carl and decided to send him an email to see if he would talk to me. I had heard some scary stuff about Carl, so I had to be prepared and did not wish to annoy him with trivial matters. To be ready, I took the time to read some of his seminal research papers and was truly awed by his discoveries and his penetrating writing style. I wanted to impress him, but more importantly I just wanted to meet the person that had quietly changed our understanding of biology. I could have never imagined where it would all lead. I cannot say exactly when I had my first visit with Carl, but I do vividly remember the encounter. I recall walking up the outer staircase of Morrill Hall facing Goodwin Avenue. I walked past the yellowed fraying shrines of Carl’s early phylogenetic trees that hung in the hallway and on the door. I turned and there he was, a head of radiant white hair, feet up, leaning back in an old leather-backed metal chair snuggled up to his computer located on a messy lab bench. There was a tense moment and then Carl broke the ice with a big welcoming smile and an invitation to come in and look around, as if he’d expected me his whole life. He gave me a quick tour of his lab and office complex, joyfully showing me his famous autoradiographs, pulled reverently from yellowed envelopes and cardboard boxes. Our first conversation lasted about three hours, and I came away with the feeling as if I’d just encountered a true visionary. I listened to him intently as I had countless times thereafter, and he listened to me with an open mind, seemingly finding great pleasure in hearing things he knew little about. Carl immediately caught on to the deep evolutionary principles I was trying to uncover in studying Correspondence to: Harris A Lewin; Email: [email protected] Submitted: 04/10/2014; Accepted: 04/12/2014; Published Online: 04/14/2014 http://dx.doi.org/10.4161/rna.28866 Memories of Carl from an improbable friend