The strands of a life

"During the past fifty years, Robert L. Sinsheimer has been a scientist, teacher, and administrator. He has witnessed and participated in astounding developments in molecular biology, taught at one of the country's leading private institutions, and headed a campus of the largest public university in the nation. His experiences give him a unique vantage point from which to view the paths science and education have taken in the twentieth century." "As a student and then a researcher at MIT in the thirties and forties, as a professor at Iowa State, and then at Caltech for twenty years, Sinsheimer was involved in the discovery of circular DNA and in the first test-tube synthesis of infective DNA. He was a major participant in the "molecular revolution," which radically transformed the science of life and subsequently provided an understanding of biological processes at their most fundamental genetic level, opening the way to genetic engineering and a biology of synthesis." "In 1977 Sinsheimer became chancellor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, at a critical time in its evolution, and ultimately revitalized the campus. He successfully negotiated his transition from the relative calm of private education to the capricious economic and political fortunes of the largest public educational institution in the country. During his ten years as chancellor he was instrumental in establishing the Keck Telescope in Hawaii, operated jointly by the University of California and Caltech, and the initiation of the ongoing national Human Genome Project." "Writing with simple elegance of his life in science and education, Sinsheimer offers historical and philosophical insights into the development of molecular biology, as well as a view of the daily life of a researcher and administrator. His unique perspective on the nature of science and the university will interest a range of readers."--BOOK JACKET.