Staggering waste of talent: Douglas Prasher
Recently Nobel prizes were announced in various categories and GFP protein took the honors in the chemistry department.OSAMU SHIMOMURA, MARTIN CHALFIE, and ROGER Y TSIEN will receive Nobel prize in December 2008 for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP ( you can read here ).But the man’s name, who is responsible for the cloning of this glowing gene in early 90’s was conspicuous by its absence. Douglas prasher cloned the GFP gene when he was at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and later passed on the gene to the this year Nobel recipients when contacted.
Its sad that he is no longer into science but instead now driving a courtesy shuttle for a car dealership in Huntsville to support his family. After failing to get funds from NIH to continue research , he moved to the US Agriculture college and then took a job with a NASA contractor in Huntsville only to lose in 2 years.Later many tries to find a job in science failed ,leading him to his present job with car dealer.
I never thought I would enjoy working with people so much. ‘Cause doing science is kind of a loner thing; but doing this, I meet new people every day, and I hear all kinds of stories, some of which I don’t need to hear. Because I’m kind of a bartender,” –Prasher .
But the money which he gets out of it is not enough to run his family of five and now he ran out of all his savings . Come December Tsien and Chalfie, along with Osamu Shimomura, will go to Stockholm and receive almost a half-million dollars and surely as Prasher wants they owe him a Dinner when they visit Hunstville next time.But the glowing gene discoverer doesnot regret on passing on his work to great scientist ,who did wonders with his discovery and believes he got a hard luck story.This instance once again signifies that in science one need to have loads of luck apart from the ability to think and design experiments.Hope this sudden hype with Nobel prize for GFP gets its discoverer his job in the scientific field ,which happens to his right place and really it hurts to see such staggering waste of talent.
Related Posts:
If you liked what you just read, you may want to subscribe to my
RSS FEED
Thanks for visiting!
Its a real shame how such a talented scientist is not in a research job but driving the shuttles. I am doing my PhD and after reading this kind of disappointing stories it hard to keep my faith and confidence up especially it appears that scientific community is more on row of politicians, where what we see is the star (celebrity like Obama or Clinton who are expert in manipulating the words) and the one who is hiding behind the story will be never known to the people (the ground workers). This is a story about very highly talented scientist who just missed the Nobel prize, nobody know what will happen to a average scientist . If luck have been fair and Dr. Douglas Prasher have been winner this year than it should have been a more great story and then I should have a reason to be proud but for now I have no proud to be a scientist and pursuing research as career. I am less worried about that Dr. Douglas just missed the Nobel prize, but more weared about how the science is taking shape that a person like him is jobless.
To be honest with u abhishek its justified that Douglas is not among the nobel this year for GFP work………..because is not involved with science for long………..agreed that he did great work in cloning gfp but couldn’t carry on and bad luck could be one factor ………..but in todays world of hard competition there is no room for any error if u want to be among top people in ur work field…………and douglas couldnot get enough funds to be in this field and lost the race ……..even though he lost Nobel but he deserves his job back in science rather than spending rest of the life as shuttle driver,because there lies huge talent we all know….
And there is also no need to be disappointed after reading such stories …….agreed science is not healthy state because of reasons u mentioned but still if u like science and have enough zeal to do good work u still get ample opportunities…………luck is the one which u can’t control .so think positive and work hard………… because very few people gets a chance to live a dream and we are lucky ones i suppose………good luck for ur P.hD and thanks for the visit………
Hello
I taught this only happens in third world countery where i came from (India).
But the way our Politicians (American’s) are behaving we would soon be a third world country with no funds.
Everything in “DEBT”
HOw will we have funding for Science
True slowly things are getting difucult in our field ……….be it for funds for projects ot getting good jobs………;;;same is the situation everywhere i suppose……….india ,US and also in France where i am studying currently……….unfortunately things doesnot look like improving also espeacially for fundamental research………..
Thanks for ur visit!!!!
Prasher also cloned the gene for aequorin, which along with GFP, has made biotech companies like Clontech thousands of dollars if not millions. The irony is that these days, the GFP gene would have been patented by Prasher and he would have become rich. His bad luck is mostly due to funding cuts, which reflects how our society allows patent lawyers to get rich but leaves honest basic research scientist who do the actual intellectual work in the dust.
Leave your response!
Categories
Archives
Blogroll
Friends
Tags
Most Commented