Suzanne Cory on Becoming a Scientist
  Suzanne Cory     Biography    
Recorded: 15 Jan 2003

It wasn’t actually easy to become a scientist. In fact when I made the momentous decision, momentous for me, to do a Ph.D. and decided I would go to the U.K. to Crick’s lab to do this Ph.D. I, of course, had to get a scholarship to do it. And when I looked into the scholarship situations I was amazed to find out that all of the—there weren’t many scholarships to go overseas in the first place and all of them specifically stipulated they were for men only. And it was only because I found one which probably forgot to say it that I ended doing my Ph.D. with Crick. So you know things have changed. That doesn’t happen anymore.

Suzanne Cory, is currently Director of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI), joint head (with Professor Jerry Adams) of the Molecular Genetics of Cancer division at WEHI, and a professor of Medical Biology at the University of Melbourne.

Dr. Cory, a biochemist and molecular oncologist, has focused her research interests in immunology and cancer development. Her current research on the Bcl-2 gene family, and how cells decide to live or die (apoptosis), will lead to the knowledge to develop specific therapeutics for cancer and other diseases.

Dr. Cory earned her PhD in 1968 from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, working on RNA sequencing with Nobelists Fred Sanger and Francis Crick. While at Cambridge, she met and later married scientist Jerry Adams. Following their post-doctoral work and beginning research partnership at the University of Geneva, Cory and Adams moved to Australia and The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in 1971. Their work at WEHI helped introduce gene cloning technology in Australia. In the 1980s they discovered the genetic mutation that leads to Burkett’s Lymphoma.

Suzanne Cory was invited to speak at the 1970 Symposium, and has attended many meetings and Symposia at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory since then. Dr. Cory has received numerous awards and honors, including the Companion of the Order of Australia, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and Fellow of the Royal Society. She is Deputy Chairman of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, and a director of biotechnology company Bio21 Australia Limited.

SCIENTISTS SPEAKING ABOUT BECOMING A SCIENTIST
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