Jim Eliason:  

A bit of my story since graduation all those years ago. I attended the College of Wooster, where I majored in chemistry and played in the band, orchestra and pep band. Wooster, being a small Christian college for Small Christians has an excellent Chemistry department and after graduation, I went on to graduate school at the University of Chicago where I wanted to become a cosmochemist and determine the age of the universe. Of course, plans did not work out the way I planned. As with most of my male classmates, I was in the first ever Viet Nam lottery. I applied for and obtained conscientious objector status, which meant that I had to serve alternate service for a non-profit in the field of heath, education or welfare. My service was as a research technician in the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital. It changed my life entirely. The field I was now in became my life work. When I finished my service, I switched to the Biochemistry department and did my thesis with Gene Goldwasser and was in his laboratory at the time the hormone that makes red blood cells (erythropoietin) was purified. While there, I met and married a Hungarian music teacher, Maria, with whom I am still living. My passion bec...Expand for more