James Sherley - Determining the Question

There is a moment when he really has affected the way I think about myself as a scientist and also the way I think of myself as a teacher. When I started my first principal investigator position-it was at Fox Research Cancer Center and I was very interested in having more DNA replication taking place there. And so I decided that I would invite the two people I knew who were leaders in the field of DNA replication: Tom Kelley and Bruce Stillman. So I called Bruce and asked him if he'd be willing to come and he graciously said, yes! So I could remember at that-when he came to give a talk driving into Fox Chase and talking with him about "how do you read papers, what's the most important thing in reading a paper." And back in those days I thought it was the analysis, the data, how well the experiments were done and I remember Bruce saying, "You know the most important thing when you read a paper is at first, determine what the question is." And I've taken that approach to reading papers and I teach my students that as well. Everything starts with, what is the problem that's being addressed, what is the question. And that's something I got from Bruce Stillman.