REVISED

Bruce Ames taught me not to constrain my students if they had a good idea; even if I thought it might not work out, if it was risky and not foolish I just let them try it. So, I think my lab was more varied in terms of projects compared to my colleagues. Some laboratories, focus on one thing. If you want to work on that topic like DNA replication, you go to that lab. I ended up working on plants, on yeast, and on two pathogens, because that was what interested me. And that was stylistically from Bruce Ames’ influence.

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.