"I think
this place deliberately tries to attract and employ and enable scientists
with a vision. And that means that they’re looking toward
the future, and they have some idea of what the future might bring,
right or wrong. So there's no question that at Cold Spring
Harbor there's a premium put on attracting that kind of person.
Because they are not at a university, they have a little bit more
leeway to create an environment that allows that kind of leading-edge
creative discovery process to continue.
"Part of that
is to have the infrastructure, culture, and facilities to allow
it to happen. Part of it is this much more risky and intuitive process
of finding those people out there who are driven by these interest
levels. Not careerist goals but really fundamental interest in a
problem."
—
Tim Tully
, research biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL)
|
"The
bar is a really essential aspect of Cold Spring Harbor. It’s
a place where people meet, they have a beer, they just relax, and
they have a chance to talk about whatever they want to talk about.
This is where you bump into people that do something different.
Over a beer and a casual conversation, you talk about science. And
that’s where you find out that you have so much in common—and
that there are, indeed, things that you can learn from somebody
that does something completely different. It’s really important
to be able to have a regular life, have a beer, and just casually
talk about what the problem is you’re studying."
—Marja Timmermans, research biologist at CSHL
"Actually,
the bar has been the site for a lot of important initiatives. The
initiative to start sequencing the worm
C.
elegans
,
for which there were three Nobel prizes, was really
started in the bar."
—
Bruce Stillman
, Director
of CSHL
|