Nigel D. F. Grindley

Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry

Nigel GrindleyNigel Grindley, B.A. University of Cambridge, Ph.D. London University, faculty member at Yale since 1980: The research you have accomplished during your time at Yale has made seminal contributions to two major areas of molecular biology.

First, in your work on DNA polymerase, done in collaboration with your partner Cathy Joyce, you have creatively and successfully integrated biochemical studies with structural studies to provide novel insights into how DNA—so central to all living organisms—is accurately replicated. In addition, your fundamental studies of a recombination enzyme revealed how specific pieces of DNA can be cut out of one part of a genome and moved to other specific locations. Your findings have been at the forefront of understanding the molecular mechanism of “jumping genes, “ the process where segments of DNA sequence that can change their positions within the genome of a single cell. These outstanding achievements in molecular biology have appropriately been recognized by your election as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

A distinctive feature of your way of working is that you have continued – throughout your long career—to do research in the lab with your own hands, allowing you to enjoy the fun and creativity of being engaged in science long after many colleagues of your tenure and distinction have stopped working at the bench. Importantly, your presence in the lab has made you available to generations of students and postdoctoral fellows in your lab and others, and has enabled you to advise and guide them with unusual close-up, participative dedication. We note that you have preserved this time consuming “hands on” approach to research while still finding the time to chair the department of MB&B, serve on editorial boards of journals and organize international science meetings.

All of these are important and wonderful contributions. But as you retire your colleagues would like to express their appreciation for something that goes beyond all of these – and that is the spirit in which you undertake and accomplish them. You have been an extraordinary example of a fine, accomplished, productive colleague, and, importantly, you have been a fun colleague as well. The spirit of any investigation, the warmth of any room goes up a number of degrees when you are present. Throughout your career you have made it plain that seriousness of research can be coupled with a joy for life. Now as you retire, your colleagues thank you for your scientific accomplishments, and for the cheerful, positive approach to research and life that we know will serve you well during the happy pleasures of retirement.

Tribute Editor: Penelope Laurans