The concept of an international award seems distant to Brandeis students. However, for the 1989 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry Dr. Sidney Altman, it seemed a great distance further. Born to poor immigrants in Montreal, Canada during the Great Depression, Altman found himself in a place where he had no choice but to go forward. The soon-to-be Nobel Laureate's humble upbringing lead him to believe very strongly in the mantra that he lives by to this day: "Work hard." On Nov. 19, Brandeis hosted Altman as a guest lecturer. He currently does biochemical research at Yale University. Each week, the Biochemistry department hosts a speaker for a "Pizza Talk," during which the entire community is invited into one of the Gerstenzang lecture halls for free food and a presentation on current biochemical research.

About 70 students and 10 faculty members attended the lecture; among those in attendance was Altman's former Ph.D. student and current Brandeis Biochemistry faculty member, Prof. Daniel Pomeranz Krummel. Krummel was the Brandeis faculty member who contacted Altman and asked him to speak.

Altman not only spoke about his work on RNA-catalyzed reactions, but also about his path to success, which was filled with a lot of academic and social difficulties. His awardwinning research, which was an overhaul on the world's view of ribonucleotides, was met with a large amount of scrutiny from the newborn biochemical community because his work seemed radical compared to information that was previously published.

"In my lab," Altman recalled, "this brilliant postdoctoral woman found activity of an RNA as an enzyme, when the tube she was working with was supposed to be a negative control." This means that there was supposed to be no activity in this sample; however, it became the only one sampled that showed results.

RNA was known at the time to act as the carrier of information from the nucleus of a cell to the rest of the cellular machinery. The information is then translated into proteins, which carry out tasks for the cell. RNA was also known to be used in enzymes, but only as mediators: Enzymes need to be in certain shapes in order to work correctly, and RNA was used to help the protein fold into this specific conformation.

For 5 years, Altman struggled to prove his research.

"The men and women that I was working with were all around my age [30 years old], and I wasn't going to allow careers to be ruined due to pettiness," Altman said. People looked at his research as fraudulent because the concepts that Altman was trying to prove were so different from that which had previously researched.

The scientific community at the time was set in its beliefs and refused to take what Altman was studying as valid. Those scientists were blatantly "overlooking the truth," Altman said.

Altman's courage in taking on the entire biochemical community was apparent in the early 1970s as he prepared his work for publication.

Because the field of biochemistry was just blooming, referees, or editors for publication, were often chosen from a small pool of knowledgeable researchers. The community, which was small at the time, had a majority of people who were against the research that Altman was conducting.

"No one seemed to appreciate the idea that a ribonucleotide could act as a reusable catalyst. They acted irrationally because of that," Altman said. The referees unfairly judged the prepublications of Altman-criticizing and ridiculing his articles in order to prevent publication.

Altman was threatened with a loss of funding and an ostracized name among scientists. "We had basically created the field of RNA processing in my lab, and too many people relied on its success." Had his project failed, all of the hardworking men and women in Altman's laboratory who relied on his grants and guidance would be out of their jobs.

Kelsey Anthony, a third-year Ph.D. student of Biochemistry in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, reflected on Altman's visit to the University. "He was real. He told us the good and the bad part of being a scientist." The good part, of course, is the success and the thrill of research-following an idea until the fulfillment of an answered question. The bad part was the competitive nature of the unfortunate maxim "publish or perish."

"It was incredibly inspiring to listen to the hardships of [Altman's] career path," said Clarisse Van Der Feltz, a second-year Ph.D. student in Biochemistry.

"It's the part of science that is usually behind a closed door. There is no one better to tell their story than [Altman]," continued Anthony.

Altman's childhood endowed the young scientist with the ability to have determination in whatever he put his heart into. His mother, a textile worker, and father, a grocer, married and settled down in a mostly Jewish neighborhood in Montreal.

"It was made clear to the first generation of Canadian-born children that the path to opportunity was through education," explains Altman in his autobiography available through the Nobel website.

Six years after his birth, the first atomic bombs wreaked havoc in Japan over Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II. These explosions that shook the world opened the eyes of young scientists in every corner of the earth, including Altman's.

Inspired by the research behind the bombs, Altman set out from that point on to study physics.

Though Altman excelled at physics, he explained that he "did not have a superb record as an undergraduate." He applied to any graduate school that he believed would take him.

Gaining entrance into only Columbia University, the choice was made for him as to where the next path of his journey to success would lead him. At Columbia, Altman spent two semesters taking classes and waiting to do real laboratory work. As he became more and more frustrated, Altman decided it was best to leave Columbia. "I quit before they kicked me out," Altman said. "I didn't want to be there anymore, and it was clear they didn't want me either."

From Columbia, Altman moved to Colorado, where he met the famous physicist and author Dr. George Gamow. Gamow took a liking to Altman and introduced him to professors at the University of Colorado Medical School. There, Altman's mentor, Dr. Leonard Lerman, gave him the counsel and companionship that he needed to become a productive scientist-not in physics, but in molecular biology.

Connections were made after Altman was received his Ph.D., and he left America to join Dr. Francis Crick in the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

"I know it's cliché, but it's true," Altman said. "No one ever gets anywhere without hard work. So find what you love and work hard. It doesn't have to be science. You just need to believe in it."

Having been ridiculed for his research and underestimated in his knowledge, Altman's work eventually became the building blocks for our current understanding of RNA and the way it acts in a cell.

Currently, his work is focusing on using the catalytic RNA that he classified and purified for his Nobel-winning research in attempts to use it as antibiotic therapy in humans.