INTERVIEW BY TURKISH STUDENTS via e-mail — April 2023
- Can you describe your journey into the field of cryo-electron microscopy, and how you became interested in this area of research?
— I have described this at length in many presentations, some of which are publicly available on youtube. I’m particularly pointing at the text of the speech I gave at the symposium given at my 80th birthday (actually, because of Covid, celebrated on the 82nd birthday last September): https://www.josha-journal.org/system/articles/merged_pdfs/000/000/850/original/tmp_pdf_speech-by-joachim-frank.pdf?1665408957, where my path from physics into biology is sketched out.
–But I have to take issue with the idea that my journey was “into the field of cryo-EM” since that field did not exist at the start. Rather, the field emerged as a result of the confluence of math/computational methods I developed — before cryo-preparation methods existed –, with the cryo-preparation developments by Bob Glaeser and Jacques Dubochet. I describe this confluence in some detail in the following article:
Frank, Joachim (2015). “Generalized single-particle cryo-EM – a historical perspective”. Microscopy. 65 (1): 3–8. doi:10.1093/jmicro/dfv358
- You won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017, which society views as one of the highest levels a scientist can reach. What is the most exciting thing about being considered worthy of a Nobel Prize?
–Well, it is exactly the fact that it is viewed by society as one of the highest levels a scientist can reach. As a consequence, people treat me with a lot of respect and sometimes deference, and all of a sudden, my opinions count much more than before. And in the background is the satisfaction and pride to know that the award still follows the spirit of Alfred Nobel’s 1896 dictum that it should be given to “those who . . . have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”
- During your education, what was the most beneficial investment you made for yourself?
–I have no idea how to answer this. I also have no idea what you mean by “investment.” My parents paid for my education. I saved at one time to buy a camera, and I always loved photography.
- The Nobel Prize in Chemistry you received is invaluable. Which past winners of the Nobel Prize in your category do you admire the most as a scientist?
–Max Perutz, Thomas Cech, Jennifer Doudna. All did absolutely groundbreaking research and were/are visionaries with a broad humane view of life sciences. I would add Sydney Brenner if I were allowed to include Physiology/Medicine.
- What are some of the projects you are currently working on that will have a significant impact?
–The development of time-resolved cryo-electron microscopy, for the visualization of short-lived states (in the range of 10 to 1000 ms) in a reaction of biomolecules. We have already succeeded in using microfluidic devices to visualize intermediates in bacterial and eukaryotic translation – see for instance Fu et al., Nature Commun. 2019, Kaledhonkar et al., Nature 2019, and Bhattacharjee et al., biorxiv 2023. These techniques, especially if the time range can be extended into tens of microseconds, will have a large impact on the understanding of biological processes.
- Could you give some advice that could inspire the next generation of scientists, and explain why you think this is important?
–throughout my career, the most important turning points and milestones came through interventions of unplanned, serendipitous events. My advice is: if you have a compelling, unorthodox idea then it’s worth to give it a try, and pursue it, but be on the lookout all the time for things that pop up at the periphery (I call it peripheral vision); a failed experiment, a conversation with a friend about something entirely unrelated to your pursuit, an exhibit in an art gallery, the sight of an unusual plant while you walk in the woods – all may give sudden insights to a problem you kept pondering.
- Could you describe how a typical day goes for you, and do you find time for your hobbies? Is it important for you to do so?
–I divide my time (for instance alternate weeks) between New York and a place in the Berkshires, 2 ½ hours by car up North in Massachusetts where my wife and I have a house on plenty of land. The typical day is different, depending where I am.
–Here is my typical academic day when I’m in New York: at around 8:30 I would take the subway from the stop close to my apartment to the Medical Center which is 100 streets up, a 25 minute ride. In my office I would do a few things out of a list that includes meet with a student to discuss progress of a project; meet with a team to plan/lay out/draft/finalize a manuscript; have zoom meeting with collaborators; check biorxiv and some journals in my specialty for new research articles; work on a power-point presentation for a planned trip; have a meeting with a scientist who has been invited to speak at one of the seminars at one of the departments of the Medical School; interview a student for admission to one of the graduate schools; attend a faculty meeting;. In the evening I take the subway back around 5:30 pm.
–In my Berkshire home, I would spend a couple of hours attending the vegetable garden, then go into my study and do a few things out of the above list except that meetings are dome by zoom. I also make some progress in writing a book that describes my life in science, and in my literary activities (a literary blog, short stories, working on a novel; see franxfiction.com).