REVISED

All along in my life, I made choices that I thought would be exciting. I didn't go to medical school; I went to graduate school, which was exciting. I didn't continue working on bacteria; I worked on yeast, which was exciting. I chose things which seemed challenging to me. The new role as Director of The Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research seemed like it would be a big challenge. So, it fit with my character. And it gave me the opportunity to see how people interact. Before this, I was in my lab, I had lots of people in my lab, and I focused on them. When you're running a large institution, you have to see how all the parts fit together in a way that you don't really think about when you're running your own lab. But it seemed like a new challenge. I was responsible for a lot of different people with diverse personalities and egos. (I like to say that it felt like practicing psychiatry without a license!)

Over the years, I had been offered many different jobs to run other institutions, but the Whitehead directorship seemed like even a greater challenge with many expectations. As Director of The Whitehead, I had the money to do what I wanted and to make a real impact. And I had the good fortune to have John Pratt, who was an excellent assistant director. He liked to do the things that I didn't like to do and I liked to do the things that he didn't like to do, so we fit together just perfectly.

It was a perfect situation. David Baltimore had accepted the presidency of Rockefeller a year before he actually moved in the year before he took the presidency I was really running The Whitehead Institute. One achievement as Director that I’m especially proud of is the expansion of The Whitehead and overseeing the building project of a new huge addition. I especially enjoyed seeing The Whitehead Institute grow. One big challenge was to figure out how to build the new wing of the Whitehead Institute without interrupting ongoing research that was in progress. The architects planned the new building to be built immediately adjoining the original Whitehead and then married them together. Sort of rejoining two Siamese twins. There's a seal still down at the end of the hall where the two buildings were married together. All of that was a lot of fun; I enjoyed the new challenge and the new addition was very successful. Our students today do not realize that they are not in the original structure.

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.