Interview with Gary Ruvkun

October 2024

Gary Ruvkun: Hello?

Adam Smith: Hello, am I speaking with Gary Ruvkun?

Gary Ruvkun: Yes, you are.

Adam Smith: This is Adam Smith calling from the website of the Nobel Prize.

Gary Ruvkun: Hi, Adam!

Adam Smith: Hi! Well, many, many congratulations!

Gary Ruvkun: Thank you!

Adam Smith: So you just got the call from the Committee a few minutes ago, what… what happened?

Gary Ruvkun: I heard what sounded like an authentic call from the Nobel Committee! So… there’s always a chance that it’s one of my friends.

Adam Smith: Yes! And so, have your friends played pranks on you in the past?

Gary Ruvkun: Well, I best not say. But you know that, you know, the call from Stockholm is mythic in the world of science, and I’m sure it is in literature too, and maybe even the Peace Prize people pull pranks on each other; although I doubt it!

Adam Smith: We think they might be too serious for that sort of thing, yes.

Gary Ruvkun: I think they’re very serious.

Adam Smith: What were your first thoughts when you heard?

Gary Ruvkun: Well, just surprise and, you know, “Oh boy, it’s going to be a fun ride!”

Adam Smith: Yeah. When you and Victor Ambros made the discovery of an entirely new mechanism for regulating gene expression, you must… the thought must have occurred to you that it was Nobel-worthy.

Gary Ruvkun: No. No, no, no. At that moment, it was… it was just the quirky, what we were working on, it was really interesting. We were young faculty members who wanted to make sure we were successful at the next stage of our careers. And we weren’t thinking that this is going to win a Nobel Prize; we were thinking this is really interesting. 

Adam Smith: Yeah.

Gary Ruvkun: You know, as the field exploded, which is just a joy to watch, you know, then there was a sense that, you know, this is the sort of field, the sort of sea-change that gets awards and things. But that… that took a long time and… and was an unbelievable pleasure to watch, to participate in. The talent that got attracted to the field was magnificent. And, you know, the meetings with, you know, 200 or 300 people were electrifying, and still… still are great. So – 

Adam Smith: It’s really lovely to hear the way you say how exciting it is to see the field build, because in some ways you might think the opposite, you might think, “I like having these niche areas to myself,” and it’s great. But it emphasises the social side of the whole thing.

Gary Ruvkun: Oh yeah, there’s… there’s a lot of interchange.

Adam Smith: One nice thing about you is that you took this career break between being an undergraduate and a graduate, and going to grad school. 

Gary Ruvkun: Yes.

Adam Smith: You just went travelling, planting trees. 

Gary Ruvkun: Yes.

Adam Smith: It’s nice for people; it’s not nonstop; you can take time to reflect.

Gary Ruvkun: Oh, yeah. And that was an era where this linear path to career, career, career was sort of not the norm, although I wouldn’t advocate it for everybody because there was a lot of carnage in the process in my generation. But yeah, for me, you know, I lived in my van for a year in the mountains of Oregon, planting trees, and then traveled all through Latin America. And I think one of the things is that I sort of… I had a lot of stories to tell. You know, it helps to have entertaining stories. And so, you know, I think for people coming to my lab, you know, this is like a different experience talking to me.

Adam Smith: Let me… let me… let me finish by asking how much you think it made a difference training with the right people, because when you did your postdoc training with Wally Gilbert and Bob Horvitz? 

Gary Ruvkun: Yeah, they were super important.

Adam Smith: How much did they teach you if you like just to keep your eyes open for important questions. I suppose that might be the key?

Gary Ruvkun: Well, these are role models for how to be a scientist and how to think about big problems. And, yeah, I was inspired by them and even by people I didn’t know, people I would see in the hallways. As an undergrad, I… I studied physics at Berkeley, and I was surrounded by these mythic physicists who, you know, were so important. So I just… it’s a sea-change that you don’t expect coming right out of high school and all of a sudden, you’re seeing people at the top of their game, and it’s all they think about.

Adam Smith: What… what an amazing introduction to science! Extraordinary. Thank you so much, Gary.

Gary Ruvkun: Thank you, Adam.

Adam Smith: Do you think it’s possible that you could send me a photograph? Is there somebody with you that could take a photograph of you right now and send it to me?

Gary Ruvkun: Oh God, I’m having a bad hair day, but I can do it within two or three hours. How’s that?

Adam Smith: Honestly, we’ve had laureates with… in pajamas; we’ve had laureates in all sorts of lovely scenes. Just… 

Gary Ruvkun: OK, we’ll… we’ll take a picture.

Adam Smith: Lovely! 

Gary Ruvkun: OK.

Adam Smith: Thank you so much.

Gary Ruvkun: Thanks, Adam.

Adam Smith: Congratulations again.

Gary Ruvkun: Thank you. 

Adam Smith: Thank you.

Gary Ruvkun: Bye.

Adam Smith: Bye now. 

来源 | NobelPrize.org

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