Recorded: 04 Jun 2001
Well, when Jim was in his youth, Jim had a problem with girls I think. Also, the girls were rather frightened by Jim. You could imagine this. You probably know this better than I do. But Jim was interested in girls and was looking out for them, and running around trying to find girls. Things rarely worked well. But it ended up fine as it is now.
Alfred Tissières was a biologist, biochemist and geneticist. He received his Ph.D. from Cambridge for his work at the Molteno Institute and subsequently did postdoctoral work on respiratory enzymes at Caltech under Max Delbruck.
Soon after returning to Cambridge, Watson suggested he come to Harvard to work on microsomal particles in E. coli.
At Harvard, Tissières and Jim discovered that ribosomes were made of two unequal pieces, each containing protein and RNA. Tissieres began a professorship at the University of Geneva where his laboratory has become prominent in the field of ribosome research.
Alfred first attended a symposium at Cold Spring Harbor in 1961 and when Jim Watson became director, Tissières would regularly visit with his family during the summer.