By Tom Still
MADISON, Wis. – It’s been said the best teachers can be judged by the success of those they mentor. In the case of Nobel Prize winner James D. Watson, who died this month at 97, a prime example is UW-Madison molecular biologist and biochemist Richard Burgess.
Burgess’ continuing story sheds first-hand light on Watson’s intellect and laid-back style of teaching, which instilled a sense of purpose in a new generation of scientists in the 1960s and ‘70s that continues to pay dividends today.
Burgess was among a small cadre of young Ph.D. students at Harvard University under Watson, who co-discovered “double helix” of DNA in the 1950s. Among fellow scientists, Burgess is known today for building on the work of Watson and others by discovering the first positive “transcription” factor within the sub-unit structure of the RNA polymerase.
In lay terms, that’s part of what enables DNA and RNA to communicate to turn certain cellular processes on and off.
At home here in Wisconsin, Burgess is known for his decades of work at the UW-Madison’s McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research and the 1984 founding of the Wisconsin Biotechnology Center, which he led until 1996. The center continues to help many Wisconsin biotech companies by providing tools and expertise that can make them competitive. Even today, Burgess is the senior oncology advisor to FAR Biotech, a company co-founded by Madison’s Max Duckworth.
In an interview, Burgess recalled Chicago native Watson as a “very honest and open” mentor who didn’t like to micro-manage his graduate students; he preferred to have them learn by example and their own mistakes.
“Jim wasn’t the person you went to for how to do an experiment,” Burgess recalled, but was instead more of a “theoretician” who was “very good at strategizing on how to proceed.”
And yet, Burgess recalled, Watson’s Harvard laboratory was “not a place where you could get away with any B.S.” He was attracted there after earning his master’s degree because it was “one of the best in the world” and exuded a sense of advancing the frontiers of molecular science.
“There was always a sense that if there was something new to be found, we would find it.” Burgess said.
He called Watson a “complex mentor and man” who never put his name on a research paper authored by students, which included Burgess’ now wife of 58 years, Evansville, Wis., native Ann Baker Burgess.
Watson cared about his students, helped them find jobs around the country and world – yet knew when it was time to play, as Burgess recalled.
“Jim liked to have parties” in an apartment with uneven floors and lots of abstract art, including one party in which the late Melina Mercouri – film star and later a Greek politician – was a featured guest. Another guest was Francis Crick, the other half of the 1962 Nobel Prize pair.
Party animal or no, Watson had a lasting scholarly influence through his book, “Molecular Biology of the Gene,” which Burgess described as a “go-to” text to this day.
Later in his life, Watson drew scorn for his belief that black people had genes that made them less intelligent than white people. Burgess isn’t glossing over that – “Jim said some deplorable, hurtful things” – but hopes his larger legacy is not forever tainted.
Perhaps it won’t be forever blemished. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York severed all ties with Watson in 2019 over his repeated comments after nearly 50 years of running that lab. However, the lab’s website as of Nov. 12 features a Watson remembrance on its landing page.
When Burgess was asked to name his endowed chair at UW’s McArdle lab, he chose to call it the “James D. Watson Professor of Oncology.” That title endures today even though Burgess has emeritus status.
Several of Watson’s Ph.D. students have won Nobel Prizes of their own, which shows that teachers with what Burgess described as an “unusual mentoring style” can still leave their mark. In this case, the UW-Madison and the state’s biotech economy were beneficiaries through Burgess.
Still is the past president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. He can be reached at tstill@wisconsintechnologycouncil.com