ENHS Nature Trails November 2001 Article 1

This month's speaker: Chuck Kimmel

When I asked past ENHS president Nathan Tublitz what I might say about Chuck Kimmel, he paid him the highest compliment: "Chuck's an outstanding scientist who remains at the cutting edge of his work." Here's what Chuck says about what might have influenced him to be that "cutting edge" scientist.

WERE YOU INTERESTED IN NATURE AS A CHILD?
Oh yes, in southern New Jersey, where I grew up, we lived close by to woodlands, lakes, and swamps, and my close friends and I were out there at every opportunity.

PARENTAL INFLUENCES?
My father was an anatomist. As a kid, I thought he led a very dull, hard-working life. But when I was in college, I had summer research assistant jobs in his lab, and these experiences were really elucidating about the business of scientific inquiry.

EARLY TEACHER INFLUENCES?
I had wonderful biology teachers in both high school and college.

LANDMARK EXPERIENCES?
I flunked out of little league. Later, in college, I had poor grades and my advisor told me that if I wanted to get into medical school (the fate my mother had in mind for me) I should transfer to an "easier" school. But I didn't want to transfer at all. This, plus summer research experience, led to my eventually applying to graduate schools rather than medical schools.

ANY NATURE HOBBIES?
I have a little collection of rock garden-type perennials of the genus Saxifraga, including some native, and some rescued from spring plant shows at the Arboretum. Although the small flowers of different species in this genus often look rather similar, there is a real diversity in the shape and size of the leaves. The leaves of one native, identified at the show as S. rufidula, and probably collected from a rocky outcrop, switched in appearance in an amazing way in my garden. Small and leathery leaves were replaced this year with quite large and soft ones. Perhaps environment plays a major role in determining the leaf characteristics in this form.

MEMORABLE TRAVELS?
Reida and I have traveled to one or another spot in the British Isles (i.e. Scotland and Ireland) about once annually over the past 14 years. Included were two 9 month-long sabbatical leaves to Cambridge. I'll incorporate a little of our British fossil-hunting experiences in my talk.

HOW DID YOU GET INTO YOUR AREA OF SPECIALIZATION?
My favorite course, taught by my favorite teacher in college, was in developmental biology, the study of embryonic development.

WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR TRAINING?
I went to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, then on to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for graduate training, and finally I spent two years at the Salk Institute in La Jolla doing postdoctoral work before coming to Eugene.

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO OUR TOWN?
I was hired as a new assistant professor at the University in 1969. In those days, just post Sputnik, finding a university science job was a good deal easier than it has been ever since, and essentially I could pick a job just where we thought would be a great place to live. We made a wonderful choice.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO TELL US FRIDAY?
I gave a talk to the ENHS about 10 years ago, and since then there has been a real quantum leap in our understanding of how development works. This understanding has had an important spin off as well: Morphological evolution--for example, why you and a fish look different--comes about by changes in development, and some of these changes are beginning to be understood in depth. In fact, a new synthesis in biology termed "evolutionary developmental biology" (or simply, 'evo-devo' for short) asks the fundamental question: "How does the development of complex structure evolve?" I'm going to try to illustrate some of the current excitement in this area. I'll focus on studies from my own lab in the Institute of Neuroscience on development of the zebrafish head. For example, our work on the jaw connects fish and drier vertebrates like birds and mammals. This research seems to be leading us towards a fuller understanding of jaw evolution, critical to the success of early vertebrates.

AND . . . "He [Chuck] lives about 10 miles SW of town on a small dirt farm on Fox Hollow Road (. . . stop in if you are biking or running out that way!) with partner Reida and a bunch of other vertebrates - a small collection of horses, sheep, dogs, cats, chickens, turkeys, and the bowfin, Amia calvia, an ancient 'trash' fish, for which he hopes eventually to establish a captive breeding program. Besides vertebrates, he likes the outdoors, natural history in general, to whittle, and to play the 5-string banjo." ENHS is fortunate to have both Chuck and Reida on our ENHS Board. (Quote from UO Biology Department website.)

At the University of Oregon Chuck's teaching schedule includes graduate classes in developmental patterning and neuroanatomy. In his lab he focuses on developmental genetics and patterning, using zebrafish as the principle organism.

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