REVISED

The course was bootcamp for the students. Most were heads of laboratories and were now doing what they were used to having technicians and students carry out. There was each day an invited speaker from all over the country who gave the latest information. These lectures gave some respite from the lab work. But otherwise they were stuck at Cold Spring Harbor, and they worked hard from 9:00 in the morning until 10:00 at night. But after 10 o’clock at night they often into Huntington to a local bar called Chelsea's for a drink and entertainment. Fred liked to dance, and they had dance music, and he once almost got into a fight with a biker because he was dancing with the biker’s girlfriend.

Gerald Fink, geneticist, changed the field of molecular yeast biology. He is a professor of genetics at MIT, a founding member of both the Whitehead Institute and the American Cancer Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1981). After receiving his Ph.D. from Yale University, he was a part of the Cornell faculty for fifteen years and also served as president of the Genetics Society of America.

In 1976, Fink’s lab succeeded in performing yeast transformation. Gerald Fink currently researches baker's yeast and explores critical pathways in cell growth and metabolism; applications include cancer research and the development of new anti-fungal drugs. He also directs a plant research group heralded for new insights into root growth and salt metabolism.

Although Fink grew up on Long Island, it was not until he attended the 1966 Symposium that he visited Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. In 1970, he began teaching the CSHL course on yeast molecular biology and continued doing so for 17 years. In 1999, he received the first honorary doctorate awarded by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.