Hyung Don Ryoo: A healthy career in cellular death

I n the body, some cells must sacrifi ce themselves for the greater good. Cell suicide (apoptosis) is essential for sculpting the body during development and for eliminating damaged or potentially dangerous cells that might cause disease. At his laboratory at New York University , Hyung Don Ryoo uses the fl y to study the molecular pathways that control apoptosis. His love for this model organism started during his graduate studies on Hox transcription factor regulation during development (1, 2). His choice to study apoptosis, however, was more of a carefully thought-out career plan. Indeed, in a recent interview with Ryoo, it was clear that his motivation is to be in the best position for making new discoveries, regardless of the fi eld. Ryoo's apoptosis studies started during his postdoc with Hermann Steller at the Rockefeller University (3, 4), and continue in his own laboratory (5). Though, true to form, Ryoo has recently moved into another fi eld—ER stress (6, 7). What's his ultimate career aim? To start a whole new fi eld of his own, of course. Where did you grow up? In Seoul, Korea. I spent three years in New York when I was a child, because my father had a job here, but spent most of my youth in Korea.I went to college there, and then did military service. Tell me about your military service. It was for two and a half years after college, so I must have been 22 to 24. I was assigned to a military hospital. It was mainly menial work, getting military medical supplies. We also did basic military training. Korea was a very militaristic soci-ety—we had former generals ruling the country until the mid-80s. As a child, one of my favorite movies was Platoon by Oliver Stone. But these boyhood fascina-tions toward the military disappeared during my military service. Why? In movies you see John Wayne-like fi g-ures, Rambo-like fi gures—one hero against an entire enemy army. But an individual is weak, and in the military, oftentimes out of fatigue, you get to hate your colleagues more than perhaps the other side. No military career for you then! Did you consider anything other than science? I was always pretty sure that I wanted to pursue science. I thought about physics, but my mother was strongly opposed because of a cousin of mine. He broke the all-time grade point average at Caltech …