Working with Harley McAdams

As it became apparent that the cell was in fact highly structured, the chromosome was not a random ball of spaghetti, but had specific places for specific genes in the cell. And signaling proteins were localized at specific places in the cell so that the cell was, in essence, like a department store. This is where you made the cell division proteins. This is where you assembled the replisome. This is where you put signaling proteins. And, furthermore, we were learning that where things were in the cell, was as important as when it was made. Therefore, you had to have an exquisite regulatory network of genes that incorporated positional information. At this point, my husband, Harley McAdams, who was working at Lockheed, came to a seminar that was given by Ira Herskowitz, absolutely brilliant geneticist, yeast geneticist. And at the end of Ira's seminar, he had all of these genes drawn on the blackboard with arrows and bars and multiple feedback loops.

There are not many people who can negotiate five feedback loops and tell you what comes out the end. Ira could, but so could Harley. And Harley was not only a physicist, but an engineer and understood circuitry. And at the end of Ira's seminar, Harley didn't get up, he just sat there. And he said, we have to work together. And he said, I'll make a deal with you. I'll teach you Boolean algebra if you teach me lambda genetics. And I said, it's a deal, but I know better people to teach you lambda genetics. And that turned out to be Dale Kaiser, David Botstein, and Ira. And so, Harley in fact left Lockheed.

Publishing the First Series of Papers with Adam Arkin

We lived on campus, turned one of our bedrooms into a computer lab, met up with a postdoc in chemistry named Adam Arkin. And after we all did our daytime stuff, Adam came for dinner and afterwards Harley and Adam would go up to our computer room, which was right next to our bedroom, and they would work into the night on genetic circuitry. And I always knew when they were done, usually around four in the morning, when Super Mario came through the windows and doors because they were playing games. Harley and Adam and I published the first series of papers on genetic circuitry in first of all lambda then bacterial cells from our home address, not even Stanford. It was 724 Esplanada Way, Stanford, California.

Mila Pollock: Where did you publish?

The Journal of Genetics, JMB [Journal of Molecular Biology], everywhere.

Lucy Shapiro (b. 1940, New York City) is a developmental biologist and Professor Emeritus of Developmental Biology at Stanford University where she has been a faculty member since 1989. She held the Virginia and D.K. Ludwig Chair in Cancer Research and served as director of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine. Dr. Shapiro’s lab has focused on studying Caulobacter crescentus, one of the simplest organisms that divides asymmetrically into different cell types, to uncover fundamental principles of developmental biology.

Dr. Shapiro received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Fine Arts from Brooklyn College in 1962, and her Ph.D. In Molecular Biology from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1966. In 1986, Shapiro moved to the Columbia University School of Medicine as the first female chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. Two years later, in 1989, Shapiro moved to Stanford University and founded the Department of Developmental Biology.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Shapiro became involved in policy work. She was invited to the White House to speak to President Bill Clinton and his Cabinet about the potential threats to the public posed by the increase in antibiotic resistance, emerging infectious diseases, and the possibility of bioterrorism. She then went on to serve as a scientific advisor to the Clinton administration and advisor on bioterrorism to the secretary of homeland security, Tom Ridge, and to the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice during the George W. Bush administration.

In addition to her research, Dr. Shapiro co-founded the anti-infectives discovery company Anacor Pharmaceuticals to develop new types of antibiotics and antifungals. This has resulted in the production of two FDA approved drugs; Kerydin, a treatment for toenail fungus and Crisaborole, to treat atopic dermatitis. Anacor Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Pfizer in May 2016. She also co-founded Boragen, an agricultural innovation company that merged with AgriMetis to form 5Metis, Inc, where she serves on the board. She also serves on the board of directors at GlaxoSmithKline and Pacific BioSciences, Inc.

Dr. Shapiro has received numerous awards including the National Medal of Science awarded by President Barack Obama, the Linus Pauling Medal, Dickson Prize in Science, Canada Gairdner International Award, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Excellence in Science Award, the Selman Waksman Award, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize, the Abbott Lifetime Achievement Award, the John Scott Award, and the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize.