American institutions have been slow to adopt best practices for mentoring proteges. For example, the Washington Post reported the results of a confidential workplace survey that found extensive bullying, sex discrimination, and racial insensitivity by judges in the federal trial and appeals courts in Washington, D.C.
The scientific establishment, too, has problems with the treatment of budding scientists, according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In addition, there have been many anecdotes in the press about exploitation, sexual harassment, plagiarism, and other unethical practices in laboratories. For example, there was the bittersweet story of a woman who dropped out of her doctorate program because of harassment by two faculty members in her department at the University of Chicago, but who returned 50 years later to receive her degree.
Of course, there are innumerable counter-examples – two from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), my undergraduate alma mater. One was the touching story of biology professor Angelika Amon, who was an inspiration to generations of her students. The author of the article, Dr. Georgette Charles, perfectly captured the essence of a great mentor: "Angelika was the kind of mentor we all need: someone who shares (or even overshares), cares, makes us reach beyond what we thought possible, and celebrates with us professionally and personally."
The second example was a professor in the same department who set up a crib in his office for the 10-month-old daughter of one of his graduate students.
Those instances of mentors going above and beyond reminded me of my own experiences. I worked in numerous labs as an undergraduate and in graduate school and medical school, and held various positions thereafter at the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration. I had the good fortune to have some great mentors. When CNN ran a series of biographical vignettes about the network's anchors and correspondents with the theme, "The Person Who Changed My Life," I was reminded of two who profoundly affected my professional development and success.
The first was Dr. Leonard Garren, an eminent medical researcher, physician, head of the division of endocrinology, and at the time the chairman of the faculty at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine. As a graduate student in the university's biology department, I rotated through a number of labs throughout the university during my first year, the object of which was to find a suitable place to do my doctorate research. One of those rotations was in the lab of Dr. Garren, who had made seminal advances in elucidating the mechanism of action of hormones at the molecular level.
I found both the clinical and research sides of endocrinology to be so fascinating that I decided to apply to the medical school and one spring day sat down with Dr. Garren in his office to discuss it. We both knew that it was past the deadline for applying for the following fall, but, to my astonishment, he picked up the phone and called the head of the admissions committee. As expected, she informed him it was too late to apply to the next class, but he told her that she needed to make an exception, or else he would resign as chairman of the faculty – an important but thankless position – and would let it be known that she was responsible.
That did it. She relented, I applied, was admitted, and as they say, the rest is biography. I graduated four years later with M.S. and M.D. degrees and headed to Harvard's Beth Israel Hospital for my internship and residency.
The second person who changed the arc of my professional life was Dr. Frank Young. When he headed the Food and Drug Administration in the late 1980s, I was his special assistant. My primary area of responsibility was biotechnology regulatory policy, and I frequently attended inter-agency meetings at which the various regulatory agencies discussed and formulated and – ostensibly, at least – coordinated their respective policies. In reality, however, it was more like acrimonious disagreements between street gangs on a bad day.
As scientists who had actually used the newest molecular techniques of biotechnology in the lab (unlike our counterparts at USDA and EPA), Dr. Young and I understood: 1) their vast potential to contribute to medicine, agriculture, and environmental applications; 2) that they were essentially extensions, or refinements, of less precise, less predictable, older techniques; and 3) that they didn't require sui generis, excessive regulation.
Our view was also reflected in the official overarching U.S. government approach to regulation, as described in the 1992 Scope Document, published by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and intended to create more narrowly targeted, risk-based oversight. The goal was to achieve scientifically defensible and risk-based regulation that considered real – not theoretical or imaginary worst-case – risks of emerging R&D and commercialization of products.
That approach called for oversight and regulatory triggers to focus on the risk-related characteristics of products, such as a plant's weediness or a drug's toxicity, rather than on the process, or technique, used to modify the parental organism. That approach reflected the consensus in the scientific community that was clearly and authoritatively described in seminal reports from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council in 1987 and 1989, respectively.
However, seeing the opportunity to establish new regulatory empires, the regulatory agencies other than the FDA were having none of it. Ignoring the tenets of the 1986 Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology and the scientific consensus, USDA and EPA instead opted for expansive, excessive, expensive regulation that preferentially and inappropriately captured (and still captures) many products made with molecular genetic engineering techniques, and subjects them to debilitating regulatory costs.
As the discussions unfolded, at meeting after meeting, I invoked the underlying science and the principles of the Scope Document and continued to object to the other agencies' self-aggrandizing, damn-the-science predilections for unnecessary, unscientific regulation.
Inside the Beltway, politics prevails, however, and no good deed goes unpunished, so finally, senior USDA and EPA officials sought help from their allies in the House of Representatives to rein me in. The result was a letter to Dr. Young from three extremely powerful congressmen, one of whom, Michigan Democratic Rep. John Dingell, chaired the House committee with oversight over the FDA. The essence of the message was that I should shut up and mind my own business.
I was aware of the letter but hadn't discussed it with Dr. Young when I ran into him in the corridor that connected our offices. The conversation went this way:
Dr. Young: Good morning, Henry.
Me: Hi, Frank.
Dr. Young: You know about the letter?
Me: Yes.
Dr. Young: I was just on the phone with congressman Dingell and promised him I would speak to you.
[Very Long Pause]
Dr. Young: How are things going?
Me: Fine.
Dr. Young: Have a great day.
In the face of pressure from congressmen with the power to make the life of an agency head miserable and untenable, this sort of loyalty and generosity of spirit is unusual in the government. Many other people in Dr. Young's position would have unhesitatingly banished someone who made waves to the equivalent of Siberia – even if the waves were in his agency's and the public's interest. He was the best boss I've ever had.
Sometimes life deals you a bad hand, but my interactions with Drs. Garren and Young were aces. I have never forgotten their kindness and generosity, and as I know they would want me to do, I try to "pay it forward" at every opportunity.
Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist, is the Glenn Swogger distinguished fellow at Science Literacy Project. He was the founding director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology. Find Henry on X @HenryIMiller.