NEB Podcast #77 -
Transcript
Interviewers: Lydia Morrison, Marketing Communications Manager & Podcast Host, New England Biolabs, Inc.
Interviewee: Bill Jack, Ph.D., retired Emeritus Scientist, New England Biolabs, Inc.
Lydia Morrison:
Welcome to the Lessons From Lab and Life podcast, brought to you by New England Biolabs. I'm your host, Lydia Morrison, and I hope this episode brings you some new perspective. Today, I'm joined by a New England Biolabs' legend, Dr. Bill Jack, who recently retired after spending nearly four decades at NEB. Bill has held many positions at NEB, from senior staff scientist to executive director of research, to emeritus scientist. Please join us as Bill shares lessons from his life and time in the lab.
Bill, so happy to have you in the studio today.
Dr. Bill Jack:
Well, thank you for having me.
Lydia Morrison:
Oh my gosh, we couldn't be more excited. How long have you been at NEB?
Dr. Bill Jack:
I joined New England Biolabs in 1987, so it's just a little over 38 years now.
Lydia Morrison:
And can you walk me through the various positions that you've had at the company over the years?
Dr. Bill Jack:
Well, it's a little difficult to really describe positions because when I joined Biolabs, you essentially gave yourself your own title and had that printed on your business cards. And so the position that was advertised that I responded to was as a senior staff scientist, but I think that that position was fairly unique at Biolabs. And so some people were staff scientists, some people were senior scientists, some people were principal investigators. Really didn't get formalized till later, but I essentially just joined in the research group as a research group head. Biolabs, traditionally, it's had fairly small groups. There were just three or four of us in the group, which was similar to the size of the other groups here. At some stage, we actually got formal with titles and I became a senior scientist. But again, that was more of a matter of the label rather than any difference in positions or organization.
Once we moved to Ipswich and Don Comb retired, well, retired is the wrong word because Don never got away from the bench. He gave over active management to Jim Ellard. And about that time we organized into having divisions and I was a division head and then later became the research director at Biolabs.
Following that time, I got to go back to the lab to do some work and so worked a year that way. And then they gave me an emeritus position, which was delightful because it came with very few obligations. The first time I tried to sign up to be on the absence list, I couldn't find anywhere to do it. And I talked to our human resource person and they said, "We don't really care how much you're here." And the appointment letter said, "You can now work on projects of your own choosing using whatever time and resources are necessary." And it was really, really a wonderful situation to be in, to be able to work on some projects here.
I chose to go after a project that I felt was risky and one that I thought that other scientists probably wouldn't want to tackle because of the risk that was there. Most people, whether they're graduate students or postdocs or people starting off in labs, people getting established in labs, feel a real weight to get publications out, to get results out and to move quickly. The project I had, I had some experience with for my postdoctoral work and also for my graduate work, a little bit at Biolabs as well. But my hope was that I would be able to just crack the door a little bit so it would encourage somebody else to go ahead and take on the project and fully develop it. And the emeritus position gave me that freedom and flexibility.
Lydia Morrison:
Well, what a great opportunity.
Dr. Bill Jack:
It really was. It's been fun doing that. And I appreciate Biolabs helping me out that way. I wish there were more opportunities for other people to do the same sort of thing, that there weren't as much pressure to have immediate results because I think that in those times of indecision, uncertainty, that there's some real solid scientific advances that can go forward. And that's kind of what sabbaticals are supposed to do in academia. We could use much more of that, people not as concerned about the immediate outcome, but rather just exploring the boundaries.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah. And what a unique opportunity to be in that position. And I agree, it would be nice to see that being offered earlier in careers, sort of a low pressure scenario to dive into topics, areas of research that sort of most interest you without that pressure to publish improve yourself. What is it that you think makes the research program at New England Biolabs so special and different?
Dr. Bill Jack:
In almost every answer I give, I go back to Don Comb, who never lost its fascination for being in the lab and doing basic research. In that scenario, the research itself was a reward. The commercial aspects of it kind of carried along with it. I think the research has several components that are important for us at Biolabs. Number one, it keeps us abreast of current projects and current approaches, current techniques, and areas of interest in the research community. That allows us to have an advanced insight into what tools might be needed and help develop those tools and use those. Secondly, it gives us a greater ability to support our customers, the people using our products, because when somebody calls in with a question, we can refer that to a person who's actually used very similar techniques or similar protocols to give them real hands-on information about what's going on.
I think also that the research program gives us an opportunity to test our products in house. I like to think that we're the final quality control on the products that we sell because we're using them day in and day out. We can very easily see where there are deficiencies or where there might be a problem that might not have been caught because we're using a technique that's more sensitive than the ones that we might use in our quality control.
The final aspect about research I like to say is that it's just plain old fun. You can make these rationalizations and try to realize why we're doing this, and it makes some sense, and we can talk about the commercial research interaction there, about engaging the community around us, but really in the end, it's just a lot of fun. And I think that, again, goes back to Don Comb. It's a quote I think about and give often one that was in the Beverly Times back in the late '80s and he was interviewed and his comment was, "New England Biolabs' scientists can't wait to get to work each morning to see how their experiments worked out." And that was truly his approach, his attitude, and one that I think that has bolstered the research that's gone on at New England Biolabs.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah. I do feel like that enthusiasm for research has really been maintained in the research department. And you can see it in the team, in the presentations that are given internally the real sense of collaboration throughout the company with the scientists. It's pretty amazing.
Okay, any other memorable moments with Don that you'd like to share? You've shared a few of them already. Any sort of favorite standout moments?
Dr. Bill Jack:
One really, every year at our yearly company meeting, Don would get up and talk about things and he would always bring up a chart of what our profit share was and the company profits. And it was a graph that he kept by hand and he would update that every year. Eventually, he had to paste on another piece of graph paper next to it to keep up with things. And he'd done his normal presentation and talked about things and then sat down and he goes, "Oh, oh." And he stood back up again and said, "Oh, by the way," and he talked about the fact that we were going to be moving to Ipswich, but he sat down, he got right back up. He said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you, I'm going to be stepping down and we'll have a new CEO." And then he sat down again as if this was the end of the meeting. And everyone was just shellshocked that this was going on. And it was kind of the way that Don was, he was a very unassuming person.
And one thing that I really admire about him is that when he did step down and transferred responsibilities over to Jim Ellard as the CEO, as far as I could tell, Don stayed in the background. And he was certainly on the board and they consulted him on important decisions, but he really gave a lot of reign to Jim to move the company forward. And I think that that's also the freedom that he gave to the individual scientists. And so I remember that feeling supported in that and feeling like he was going to let me do the things that I thought were important. And that sense of responsibility, I think was an extremely important part of the success of Biolabs, is recognizing that even though people may not have all the experience that you'd like them to have, that they'll gain it, if you just give them some independence, flexibility, and trust them, and show that you trust them by continuing to support them.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah, I think that's a really great story. Don was the kind of leader who really recognized potential in others, I think, and gave people the independence to not only grow and excel, but also to explore things that they were really interested in themselves. He was someone driven by passion, I think, and by curiosity, and so he really appreciated that in others. He really appreciated self-led learners.
Dr. Bill Jack:
And I think he also... well, my experience with him was too, that he was very flexible in terms of what you wanted. I had a time in which I had had a postdoc, the postdoc had left, and then I had a summer student who had graduated and wanted the job, and went to Don and said, "I'd like to hire this person. I realize that that's beyond the cap." He said, "Well, would you rather have him than a postdoc?" I said, "Well, yeah." He said, "Go ahead and do it."
Another time I had an opportunity to go spend a month teaching a course at Middlebury College and again, went up to Don said, "Can I take a sabbatical for this month?" And it was really no question for me, he said, "Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Go do it." That kind of acceptance without the kind of pushback that you might expect about, okay, if you do that, what is going to be the compensation? Who are you going to entrust? How are you going to run your lab when you're there?
Don trusted people, and I think that that reflected itself in the kinds of people that ended up leading Biolabs, especially in the early days. It didn't necessarily depend on what degree of education you had, depended on what your abilities were. And people were able to take steps to solidify positions within the company, to volunteer for positions, and have him take on that responsibility.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah, and I think it really set a standard for the company too, which has allowed us to continue to build those individual careers and to allow for that leniency in the ability to get interested in other things, take on new responsibilities, grow in different ways. And so that's definitely one of Don's legacies, I think.
What do you think of as your biggest contribution to New England Biolabs? I know you're such a braggadocious type person. I'm sure you'd love to talk about them all day.
Dr. Bill Jack:
I've been, over the last weeks, have been cleaning out all my freezer stocks, and so it's given me some time to think about the things I've done. Some of the projects I've been involved in, throwing away samples that took months to create. I would hope that if I'm remembered for anything, it's the way that I treated other people. I hope that that's the legacy that I would leave. There have been some scientific things that we did with some of the polymerases and evolving them for specialized functions, the basis of which was used for some of the next generation sequencing techniques that are available now and some things like that. But I really, in my mind, we have a saying that the science is easy, the people are the challenging part. And I really believe that it is, again, similar to what we've just been talking about with Don, it is the way that we treat people, the way that we work with them that makes a difference in how they produce their self-concept and their ability to share with other people.
And I would hope if I've made any contribution to Biolab, it's been in helping people to feel good about the accomplishments that they have, to motivate them to be even better, and to also accept and work with a variety of different people on a variety of different projects recognizing a common goal.
Lydia Morrison:
Well said. And I'm certain that you will be remembered in that vein at New England Biolabs. I think that the research department that you helped build that carries on today under new leadership of Tom Evans, I think that those intrinsic qualities that are important for NEB employees to demonstrate to each other, as well as to outside collaborators, those being respect and caring and understanding and empathy for others, as well as really the supportiveness that you talked about that came from Don, the supportiveness that allows other people to grow and thrive and really be part of a community where discoveries and innovation are exciting, but so are the relationships. And even when discoveries are disappointing, you still have a strong community there that's ready to support you and to move on and to move forward with you. And I think that those interpersonal relationships will absolutely be part of the legacy of the department that you help create.
Dr. Bill Jack:
We've got a number of good people and most of the time it's just a matter of getting out of their way and giving them the resources and a breathing room to be able to do things.
Lydia Morrison:
And what do you think of as your most exciting discovery?
Dr. Bill Jack:
At Biolabs?
Lydia Morrison:
Well, I don't know. No, we can go whole life.
Dr. Bill Jack:
I think the single experiment that I was most excited about that I just danced home with happened during my graduate work. And I have to give you a little bit of background here because I worked on the restriction enzyme EcoRI and there was a question in our mind is, how does it find its recognition site in the midst of all these other sequences that are there? An EcoRI site occurs roughly every 4,000 base pairs in a DNA. How does it pick that out of all the other things that may be off by just one base or another? And is there any way that it facilitates its site, location? And we were able to show that the enzyme binds non-specifically to DNA and then uses that as a guideline to be able to find the site. And so it's not just looking in three dimensions, it's rather reduces a three-dimensional search for the site to a one-dimensional sliding, you can think of a scanning mechanism.
Within that, we had created a substrate that had two EcoRI sites very close together. And so we're able to look at whether on a single event, one site was cleaved or whether one or both of those sides were cleaved. We saw that when we used a linear molecule with this, that we only saw 50% of each site being cut. And if you thought about that, that made sense because it would cut one and then it would randomly either go to the left or the right side. If it went to the wrong side, then there was no other place for it to go.
So to get around that, we made a circle that had those two sites on it and then asked on this circle, was cleavage limited to 50% of the sites, if it bounds them? We're able to show that both sides were cleaved on that circular substrate because no matter which side it got off on, it could still transit around and get that second site. And I, how many years, 45 years later, I just remembered the excitement of seeing that gel and that result and bouncing home.
So that was certainly good. I mean, there are a number of other things along the way, but I hate to live in the past like this, kind of like Bruce Springsteen, huh? Glory days here. But that was a real seminal experiment that really just was exciting to conceive, to anticipate, and then just to see the results coming out. And we were even able to show, we knew that salt affected the sliding, how far it would slide. The higher the salt, the shorter the slide would be. We were able to show that even with those circles, we could digest the salt concentration and so a different ability to go off and cleave that second site.
Lydia Morrison:
I think that's pretty cool. I think that, I don't know, it was your first discovery, so it's not crazy to me that it stands out as one of the most memorable. And it sounds like maybe that was one of the sort of pivotal moments in your life when you were like this, right? Like this thing.
Dr. Bill Jack:
It actually happened way into my graduate school career. So hopefully I was hooked before then.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah. But I can remember being a graduate student and sort of like, I mean, you know you want to be there because you've made a commitment to be there, but I still feel like at the same time in graduate school sometimes you're like, "What am I doing here?"
Dr. Bill Jack:
There are those times. And they're like one more experiment, huh?
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I'm glad that you had that really amazing, memorable discovery.
Dr. Bill Jack:
I think at Biolabs, some of the exciting ones we had been working, Don had isolated a hyperthermophilic polymerase from Archaea, from Thermococcus Litoralis. And so this was an alternative to Taq DNA polymerase in terms of thermostability. We knew that the Taq DNA polymerase, a mutant of that had been very helpful in DNA sequencing, and so we set out to try to identify a comparable mutation in our enzyme that might allow the same thing to occur. Unfortunately, our enzyme was a different family and we only had limited sequence information for a small number of polymerases at the time. So we used educated guesses, but really found a mutation which didn't really correlate with the same mutation that had occurred with Taq with making thermo sequenase, but really affected the ability of that enzyme to incorporate modified nucleotides, in particular a little bit dideoxynucleotides, but more importantly, cyclic nucleotides.
And really that discovery formed the basis of having of further advances with that polymerase system, but also opened up contacts with the number of DNA sequencing companies that were looking for enzymes to put in modified nucleotides in the sequence by synthesis technology. It was exciting to have discovered that to begin with. It was also exciting to see the way that and interact with those people who had gone on and made further modifications of the polymerase to enable their systems, being able to visit them at early stages when they were developing their platforms. I know we can name names, but I remember going over to Solexa before they were acquired by Illumina and they had their first generation sequencers there and they had cardboard over the front of them because the doors had not yet arrived.
So it was easy, it was fun to be involved with them. They were a group of scientists that were interested in pushing things forward and on the edge and just an interesting association that was there that arose from the fact that we had made that polymerase as a basis.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah. Nice to see your tools be implemented and used and help drive others' research forward.
Dr. Bill Jack:
And that's actually an aspect too that Biolabs has had a technical service, more particularly in the early days when things were a little simpler, but we would have a week every couple of months in which we would answer all the technical calls that would come in. And some of them were like, "Okay, [inaudible 00:27:08]." And I'm like, "Okay, I know it's not the ligase, but tell me what you did anyway and we'll figure it out."
But there were some calls that came in when people were saying, "I'm trying to do this and this particular step hasn't worked." We said, "Well, let's talk about it. Let's talk about what you're actually trying to do." And there were just some real interesting conversations with those people to see what they were grasping at, to see the approaches they were trying to take, suggest some alternatives or some tweaks to the way they were doing it. But just it was a real feeling of accomplishment to be able to talk to people on the phone and be involved in that way as a pseudo collaborator and to see just the wonderful wealth of information that's out there.
And that the same sort of things happened in the commercial adventures that we went off and talked to people, consulted with people on. But being a fly on the wall in those sorts of situations, making a smaller contribution was really an exciting element of Biolabs.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah. And as exciting as it was to you, I suspect that it was very important to those individuals too. It's really powerful to have someone that you can discuss your ideas with, especially I think when you're learning at the bench in laboratory work. And sometimes it can feel maybe a little bit safer even than talking to someone in your own lab. You never know what lab dynamics are or sort of what kind of competitions there might be between labs. And so I think those people probably really valued having sort of a third party to bounce ideas off of and someone who could really think through things with them.
And I think that that's one of the really unique things that the NEB Technical Support Group still provides today, is really like a partner at the bench to talk through ideas with, whether it's sort of like why your ligase isn't performing as you think it might, or whether it's something much more complex.
Dr. Bill Jack:
And I think that relates back to your original question about what research does. I remember Jim Ellard saying that "When our scientists visit other companies, good things happen." And I always like the thought at least that when we went to visit companies and we took scientists with us, that we were able to talk to the scientists rather than to the business managers. And I think that that put us on a real different level from someone who's saying, "Okay, we've got this product we need to sell," with the attitude of saying, "You've got a problem, we want to help you solve it." It may or may not involve our products, but it will involve our expertise. We're willing to give you that expertise, and there may just be some products that come along with it. It's kind of the miracle on 34th Street, Macy's approach to solving a problem.
And I think that that helped give Biolabs the right perception to be able to continue to innovate with people and to have inside edge on commercialization of things as well. So I think it helped the company, but it certainly was a good approach for our scientists to be able to take as well.
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah, I think so too. I think it's a unique position. And one of the things that I've always loved about New England Biolabs from the time that I was a graduate student calling for help, so it's definitely appreciated.
Which product have you worked on or has your work contributed to that you're most proud of, would you say? You have to choose just one. It's like a favorite child.
Dr. Bill Jack:
This goes back to the polymerase I was talking about, which we... well, we designated as Therminator.
Lydia Morrison:
It's a great name.
Dr. Bill Jack:
Thank you. Thank you. I came up with the name. We didn't have a marketing department that did that back in those days.
Lydia Morrison:
And it works too.
Dr. Bill Jack:
Well, it goes back to the original name that we wanted. When we first isolated the polymerase from the thermal vent, we were tossing around names and the name that I thought was best was infernase, the enzyme from hell, but it didn't quite catch on. So it became Vent polymerase. We were a little disappointed when we learned that that vent was only six meters under the ocean rather than being something harvested by the submarine explorer Alvin. However, deep vent actually was isolated from deep within the ocean by the submarine Alvin. So we eventually got our name back, but that's distraction.
I think that the element that has provided the greatest context and commercial opportunities for Biolabs has been the Therminator and then the subsequent mutations that were developed on top of that.
Lydia Morrison:
Why do you think NEB has been so successful in the industry?
Dr. Bill Jack:
It's an interesting question. And I think that in a broad sense, New England Biolabs has two classes of customers. First of all, we have the customers we're most proud of, and those are the ones that come to us because of who we are, the support we have, the quality of the products we have, and the innovations that we do. But it recognizes also a class of customers that come to us because who we aren't. Through the time I've been here, I have been aware of attempts to buy Biolabs by larger conglomerates. And I'm sure that that's just the tip of the ice on the iceberg. But Don was never interested in selling the company, and that hasn't happened. However, we've seen competitors who have been bought by larger conglomerations. In almost every case, Biolabs came out ahead because they didn't get the same interest and they became part of a commercial machine.
I don't think Biolabs ever did that. The research that Don was interested in has continued to go on. He financed and supported more research than you'd expect from a company our size, our orientation. And I believe that that's really made us to be more attractive to other people too. And talking about what we aren't, I think we're also attracted to customers that say, "If I start working with these larger groups and I have a product that ends up being competitive with theirs, are they going to cut the supply line off? Am I going to be stuck in that bad situation?"
So I think that broadly in the industry, those are two characteristics that are there. Again, I'm proudest of the ones that come to us because of who we are than those that come to us because of who we aren't. But both categories, I think, really have matched the kinds of scope and activities that Biolabs has had.
Lydia Morrison:
If you could give your colleagues three pieces of advice, it doesn't have to be three pieces, but if you could give your colleagues three pieces of advice, what would they be?
Dr. Bill Jack:
I think a very important lesson is that we work a lot in a world in which titles and influence are important. I've seen that over the time I was research director when people became, it seemed like more and more concerned with what their title was. And I can understand that in some aspects, because when you go out into the world and you're introduced to someone, the title becomes important because it gives them a feeling of what your responsibilities are, your importance in the organization and who you are. It may or may not be who you are, but it at least gives them a starting point. And it's clear that people treat you differently if you have a different title. So I can see from the outside world perspective when you're first making introductions before they've had a chance to really get to know you, that the titles are helpful.
However, within Biolabs itself, once you get inside the doors, I think they're not very helpful, because a lot of times it comes down to structuring, comes down to the way that we treat other people. I know that when I was appointed research director that I didn't feel like I was a different person, but I was treated differently by people. And that made me sad because, again, I didn't feel like a different person. I felt like there were still interactions I should have with people and that they would be on the same level, but they weren't.
It's important I would try to give the advice of not to let titles, job positions get in the way of interacting with people, and also making real contributions. The most successful projects that I've seen have come when people have put those aside, have put their ego aside and just worked together with a common goal going together.
One project that particularly stands out in my mind was one that was initiated back on Tozer Road, something we ended up calling pre-CR. And it was motivated by someone who came in and wanted to work with DNA that had been damaged and repair it so it could be copied and sequenced. And Tom Evans pulled the group together, but I remember sitting around the table with probably 10 different people from all elements of the company, from production. It was before we had application development, but we had people with a variety of different expertises.
And they would just sit around the table and each of them had taken off a little bit of the element of the project, working with a specific enzyme or combination of enzymes and just really sharing things together. And it really didn't matter what position they were, whether they were a postdoc, whether they were a production person, whether they were a research scientist. They were excited about being together and adding their little piece to the puzzle. And it turned out to, I think, to be a project and a product that was transformative for Biolabs in many ways because it was one of the first times that we sold a multi-enzyme cocktail for accomplishing a specific purpose.
There have been a number of projects like that have gone since, but the ones that have been most successful have been the ones where people leave their titles at the door when they come in and just work and just enjoy being together.
Lydia Morrison:
What excites you about the future of molecular biology?
Dr. Bill Jack:
I have been constantly overwhelmed with my ignorance about what the future would bring. I have a number of situations where I had kind of an advanced insight into something and thought, "Eh, that's not going to make a difference." So I'm not sure I'm the best person to know about that. I've been excited to see the way that increasingly technology has been applied.
For example, high throughput sequencing has been harnessed to do experimental things that I don't think I ever could have imagined before. Initially, I thought this is a way to sequence a genome. This is a way to isolate genes and to see what they're at. But the advances in using it, for example, Greg Loman's lab used it to analyze the frequency of ligation of different four-base pair overlaps to be able to use for the golden gate assembly in a more efficient manner. Other people have used it to try to look at the ability of different RNA ligases to hold things together, what the sequence context of those might be. Certainly looking at the modifications of both RNA and DNA to be able to see what roles they would play potentially in expression of different proteins and genes. This will only continue. The ability to now look at long molecules and phase different modifications on them, I think will give us tremendous insight into what control mechanisms are involved there.
I think the future of molecular biology is bright, and I wish I had greater insights into exactly which way they'll go. As long as they're creative people, they will continue to be that. I can remember being at a conference many years ago and actually sitting next to Ira Schildkraut, who was living in New Mexico at the time. And someone at the conference presented somebody on TelC, which is a protelomerase that makes hair pin circles at the end of molecules. Remember turning to Ira saying, "That's a great enzyme. Somebody's got to have something to use for it."
And so I think that molecular biology will continue to go on that direction. We eventually did commercialize it and indeed a number of people have inventively found ways to use those. So I think the future of molecular biology needs to keep its eyes open to novel activities. Sidney Brenner said he loved the New England Biolabs catalog because when he sits in the lobby at an airport waiting for a flight, he can go through it and think, "How can I use that enzyme? How can this be used differently?" That I think is the future of molecular biology, is just keeping your eyes open, looking for interesting activities, and then saying, "What will this allow me to do that I could not do before?"
Lydia Morrison:
Yeah, I think you captured it beautifully. It's really these small discoveries, small observations that enable huge technological shifts. And I look forward to seeing the future molecular biology holds. There's been so much change so quickly, and it'll be interesting to see how artificial intelligence moves the needle on bioinformatics and the future of these technologies as well. So lots to come.
Dr. Bill Jack:
Lots to come. And there's been great advances in being able to tailor enzymes or find the enzymes that'll do exactly what you want to, whether that be thermostability, whether that be specificity, whether that be alternate conditions in which things can operate. And the vast array of available genomic sequences, the modeling tools that are available now, and then advances in high throughput really have the ability to change the way that we do processes and go beyond just the proteases that Tide used to put in their detergents to wash your clothes, to larger industrial efforts that will really make a difference and potentially reduce the amount of toxic materials we have to use for those processes to occur.
I think that synthetic biology along that line, what can be done in engineering microbes to accomplish that, either break down toxic material or produce pharmaceuticals, for example, starting materials, it's just a tremendous capability that are there. And then going beyond that to medical needs and being able to specifically modify genomes to better benefit people. Again, I think we've just glimpsed what's going to happen.
Lydia Morrison:
It's an amazing time to be in science. And actually, I'm feeling very excited and inspired by our conversation today about the future that molecular biology is going to make possible.
Dr. Bill Jack:
Well, thank you. I've enjoyed being here and I look forward to seeing what people will come up with. As I say, I'm not sure I'm the greatest predictor of the future, but I know that there are great people out there that are, and that they'll just continue to move forward.
Lydia Morrison:
Thanks so much for being here with us today, Bill. Thank you for your time at NEB. Thank you for helping build this really incredible and unique company that we get to be a part of.
Dr. Bill Jack:
Well, it's been my pleasure, and I can't imagine being any place else.
Lydia Morrison:
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Lessons From Lab and Life podcast. We invite you to check out the episode's transcript on NEB.com for helpful links from today's conversation. And we hope you'll join us next episode when I'm talking to Dr. Craig Martin, co-founder of Waterfall Scientific, and emeritus professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Martin has studied RNA polymerases for about 40 years and joins us to explain duo-tether technology and its implications for RNA production efficiency.
