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Gerald Fischbach (b. 1938) is an American neuroscientist and pioneering researcher. He pioneered the use of nerve cell cultures to study the electrophysiology, morphology and biochemistry of developing nerve-muscle and inter-neuronal synapses. [Listener: Christopher Sykes; date recorded: 2023]

TRANSCRIPT: I, and also Steve Hyman [director of NIMH], felt that it was time to bring disciplines together, rather than have neuroscience in the Institute of Mental Health in neurological disorders and stroke, in aging, in infectious disease. Wouldn't it be good if all the neuroscience was closer together? We proposed to Harold Varmus, who was director at the time, that a new structure be put up, a new building, and they did. It took years to get it passed and built, and now it's named the John Porter Centre for Neuroscience.

John Porter was probably one of the most successful congressmen who championed science and the NIH, so I was very happy when I was invited back to give a talk at the opening of the center. And it's thriving today. I don't know where John Porter is now, but I hope he's still very involved. It's way up on the Old Georgetown Road side of the campus with beautiful grounds around it, right across from the Cancer Center. There's no place like it in the country, I think, or in the world.

That's how I moved, not away from, but beyond my own lab. Very rewarding times. So when, after 10 years at Harvard, and very satisfying years, I had a very tearful departure from the department. Me crying, them crying, why was I doing that? After all, I just recruited them, didn't I want to see them succeed? I said, 'Yes, I did, but I had been offered the directorship of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.' And I figured why not? Washington was one of our, certainly Ruth's, favorite place to live. Boston is my favorite place. I had great friends, and I miss Boston today. But she had put up with so much for so long, and I was very interested in the NIH and in directing an institute, that we decided to do it.