Genetics Researcher Came From Modest Roots

For a scientist who has elucidated a better understanding of the genetic code, Philip Leder ’56, who now acts as chairman of the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, says he comes from modest beginnings.

A resident of Stoughton Hall his freshman year, Leder, who grew up in Arlington, Va., says that his dormitory was a reflection of his socioeconomic standing.

“There was a hierarchy of dorms,” he recalls. “Those with the means could live in nicer dorms at the time and if those without could live in the character rich dorms.” Because neither one of his parents had gone to college, Leder says he did not face any pressure to choose a particular school.

While he considered enrolling in the Naval Academy, Leder says it wasn’t until he realized he wanted to pursue a career in medicine that he decided on Harvard.

The M.D.-to-be was not without his share of the normal worries that accompany any first-year at Harvard.

“I feared going to Harvard because I thought I was a fraud and they would find out,” he says. “I figured I knew myself better than they did.”

But freshman year roommate George H. Bouchard remembers Leder as “a sophisticated Washington man.”

“I was in awe of all of the stuff that he knew,” he recalls.

A biochemical sciences concentrator, Leder dabbled in German and even participated in “Verein Turmwaechter,” a social and cultural club for Germanophiles.

But Leder says he focused his time on academics.

“My major ‘extracurricular’ activity was my lab thesis,” he says.

“As I had science courses with labs, that left little time for extracurricular activities,” he adds, adding that organic chemistry was his favorite class.

Placed in Lowell House after his freshman year, Leder says that the dormitory, known at the time as “a grind house” was for diligent undergrads.

“I liked it very much, it was considered to be a house for those striving to get good grades,” he recalls.

According to Bouchard, their Stoughton entryway was comprised predominantly of scholastic types. “We were not party people.”

Nevertheless, Leder recalls late night pitstops to Elsie’s, “a sandwich place which made a terrific roast beef.”

After graduation, Leder enrolled in Harvard Medical School where he got his M.D.

Given the socio-political climate of the sixties, Leder chose to join the National Institute of Health (NIH) to avoid the draft. Once in Bethesda, Leder wound up in Marshall W. Nirenberg’s lab, where he and others established the critical link between messenger RNA and protein, allowing scientists for the first time to predict protein sequences encoded by mRNA.

“I saw the possibilities of working in science research,” says Leder, who abandoned initial plans to practice clinical medicine to work in the laboratory.

Since the landmark experiment that deciphered codons of the standard genetic code, Leder has also made breakthrough contributions to oncology, including the creation and patenting of OncoMouse, a genetically modified mouse designed for cancer research.

“His early work helped him establish himself,” said Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Philip A. Sharp, director of the McGovern Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Leder’s research eventually focused on cloning and efforts to isolate genes and describe their structure and sequence, Sharp says.

Leder counts among his researchers current Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman, according to Sharp.

“He developed a great department, not just doing all of the brilliant work himself, but having people around him who did brilliant work as well,” Sharp says, adding that over the years, Leder has identified and promoted “remarkable young talent.”

Recruited by HMS, Leder says that the post was a “second opportunity” that allowed him “to change research directions and help build a new team.”

He now lives with his wife, Aya, in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Leder has three grown children, two of whom went to Johns Hopkins University and one of whom went to Yale.

While Leder plans to retire in the next few years, he plans to devote his time to his grandchildren.

“I’ve discovered great joy comes from my grandchildren,” according to his submission in the 50th Anniversary Class Report. “In the next few years I will retire from a life in genetics, which I’ve loved, from the genetic code to the human genome. But I won’t retire from those grandchildren, and I suspect that many of you feel exactly the same way.”

—Staff writer Noah S. Bloom can be reached at nsbloom@fas.harvard.edu.