Congratulations Richard!*

*originally from LJ

I forgot to mention that last friday I went to a "party" thrown by Columbia for Richard Axel, one of the winners of this year's Nobel prize in Physiology and Medicine. Richard is a professor in the Biochemistry department, and was one of the less skilled teachers in last year's biochem class.

There were 7 speakers who talked about Richard - his background, his work, his personality, their interactions with him, etc... those were very interesting. Then Axel himself got up and talked for about 15 minutes. He talked about how he found out about the prize, how much he loved Columbia (he'd been there all of his career, and went to Columbia College for undergrad). Amazingly enough, he actually thanked all this students throughout the years and said that he accepts the prize in trust for them all. That part was surprising considering Axel's reputation as an arrogant bastard (they made fun of that in the speeches too).

Columbia was giving out buttons that said "Congratulations Axel" (with Columbia's crown emblem on it) and "Axel wins Nobel." They even went all out and had blue and white balloons (Columbia colors) that had the same statements on them. Then there were finger foods and champagne for everyone (unfortunately I had to get back to finish an experiment so I had to miss out on the actual fun).

Supposedly, there are several more people up here at the Medical Center who are possible contenders for the prize in future years.

ok, back to science (currently: preparing samples for a microarray)