Interview with Eric Davidson

1. MBL Woods Hole, U. Penn, Rockefeller Institute-Becoming a molecular biologist of early development Ute: I want to start at the very beginning of your scientific biography. I have read that as a high-school pupil you spent some time at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. Eric: I went to a very primitive high school, nothing that today would be regarded as acceptable science teaching whatsoever. But there was one wonderful woman whose name was Miss Krum; she probably was educated around 1910. I went to high school in 1950, and I graduated in'54. Miss Krum taught the biology class, which was in 10th grade. So that was 1951. She was an elderly lady with grey hair. When I came in on the first day of class, I said, “Miss Krum, I'll make an arrangement with you. I'll make all the laboratory preparations for the whole class, for the whole year, if I don't have to take any examinations except the final.” She looked at me and said, “Do you know how to use a microscope, young man?” I said, “Yes, ma'am.” Because one of my father's friends had given me that for a Christmas present a few years earlier, I knew a little bit about using a microscope. So she said, “Well, you go home and make some preparations and show them to me tomorrow morning.” I took some Paramecium and other stuff and stained them with permanganate, and she said, “Very well, young man.” The result of that was that I became completely fascinated with biology, looking at all of these wonderful things that we had to show the class the whole year