Nobel Winner Accepts
Life Raft Group Award

Watson's co discovery of the structure of DNA provided the foundation for targeted cancer treatment. By Norman Scherzer The drive from our Life Raft Group office in New Jersey to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York took about 90 minutes but it seemed to be a journey back in time and place. It was 1951 and James Watson and Francis Crick began making 3-D models of DNA at the Cavendish Physics Laboratory of Cambridge University, Cambridge England. Eight years old. Nine years later (1962) Dr. James Watson and Dr. Francis Crick traveled to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize. Fast forward to January, 2004. The Life Raft Group was planning its May membership meeting and wrote to Dr. Watson: “Dear Dr. Watson, I realize that you have received many awards and accolades in your career and I would like to offer you now the sweetest one of them all ... We would like you to stand before several hundred GIST patients to receive the Life Raft Group Humanitarian Award and, more important, to be able to look into the eyes of so many cancer patients who would not be standing there but for the pioneer work you have done. I believe that this would be the fitting connection to the 50th anniversary of your milestone research. We are the testament to your efforts.” Dr. Watson could not make our membership meeting and the occasion had finally arrived when we could present his award in person. We pull into Cold Springs Harbor. I am accompanied by Barbara Kennedy, Executive Director of Novartis Oncology, a fellow 2004 LRG Humanitarian Award Winner, and Tricia McAleer, LRG Administrative Assistant. We seek out Dr. Watson’s office on the sprawling 100 acre campus on the Long Island Sound, where Dr. Watson lives and works, and I am in awe and somewhat intimidated at the thought of meeting a Nobel prize winner. Suddenly a young women balancing several feet of culture plates piled one on top of the other dashes by our car, followed by another runner and then another. It is, we discover, part of an annual ritual and I am made calmer by the absurdity and sheer fun of it all. We are met at the waiting room by Dr. Watson who had come out to greet us. We sit before his desk for over an hour listening and then discussing genetics and Gleevec and GIST. I have to process slowly in my mind that we are discussing genetics with the scientist who helped write the book. Finally I interrupt to present his award. I forget most of what I had planned to say and instead declare that what he had done had saved my wife’s life and I wanted to thank him. I do, and then add a few remarks on behalf of all the members of the Life Raft Group. After graciously posing for photos Dr. Watson asks what we are doing for lunch. We respond in unison that we have no plans and after a breath taking walk to keep up with him as we cross the campus, we join him in the cafeteria where he proposes a collaborative GIST research project that would draw upon the technology and expertise of the Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory. Lunch ending, I remark to our new friend Jim Watson how much he had put us at ease. He replies that this was a skill he learned from his mother. Three hours after we arrive we head back to New Jersey after a day to be remembered.