8. “Welcome to the wonderful world of LINEs”

Now for a change in the cast of characters and a description of the convoluted path that I took to enter the mobile DNA field. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to go all the way back, but I’ll give you a brief outline of my path beginning with college.

I attended Dartmouth College as a premed major, and although I wasn’t sure about becoming a physician, after three years in the college, I entered Dartmouth Medical School. Because I hadn’t had any experience with sick people, I thought I needed to work in the hospital as an orderly, so I went to the Dean for advice. He noted that I had done well in organic chemistry and told me to speak to a biochemist, Lafayette Noda, about doing research. Noda was just setting up his lab and was eager for help, so I worked with him one summer on creatine kinase enzymology. I enjoyed this first taste of research work, so the next two summers, I worked with another biochemist, Lucille Smith, on electron transport in bacteria. Dartmouth Medical School was ....