Mark Ptashne

Mark Ptashne

Template:TOCnestleft Mark Ptashne (born 1940, Chicago) is a prominent biochemist and left wing activist.

Ptashne holds the Ludwig Chair of Molecular Biology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, his work on gene regulation has garnered numerous national and international awards including the Lasker Prize for Basic Research. In addition to his many research papers, he has written two books: A Genetic Switch (now in its third edition) and Genes and Signals (co-authored with Alex Gann). He studied science at Reed College and then Harvard University.

He is the son of leftists Fred Ptashne and Mildred Ptashne

Scientific research

In 1967 the Harvard molecular biologist detected a molecule, called a "represser," that regulates the way a gene functions, possibly a key in the study of cancer. Ptashne was majoring in philosophy at Reed College in Portland, Ore., when he became fascinated by a theory about represser molecules and switched to chemistry in his senior year.

Anti war resolution

In 1969, Ptashne was the intitiator of an anti Vietnam war resolution at Harvard.

Mark Ptashne, lecturer in Biochemistry, placed the resolution second on the docket of the special Faculty meeting behind a proposal supporting the October 15th Vietnam Moratorium.

All 12 Faculty members of the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, including Nobel prize winners Konrad E. Bloch, Higgins Professor of Biochemistry, and James D. Watson, professor of Biology, endorsed the resolution.

Paul M. Doty, Mallinckrodt Professor of Biochemistry and chairman of the department, and John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics, also agreed to support the resolution after Ptashne changed its wording to;

"With full recognition that this is not a precedent-setting action but one occasioned by the unique importance of the Vietnam conflict, we urge the following resolution:

It is the sense of this Faculty that the war in Vietnam must not continue. While our opinions differ in detail, we agree that the most reasonable plan for peace is the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces. We support a united and sustained national effort to bring our troops home."

"Affinity group"

Daniel Ellsberg first met Howard Zinn at Faneuil Hall in Boston in early 1971, where they both spoke against the indictments of Eqbal Ahmad and Philip Berrigan for “conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger.” They marched with the rest of the crowd to make citizens’ arrests at the Boston office of the FBI. Later that spring, they went with their affinity group (including Noam Chomsky, Cindy Fredericks, Marilyn Young, Mark Ptashne, Zelda Gamson, Fred Branfman and Mitch Goodman), to the May Day actions blocking traffic in Washington.

Vietnam

During the Viet Nam War, Ptashne was deeply involved in antiwar politics at Harvard and went to the extent of lecturing at the University of Hanoi. But he became disillusioned with leftist politics in 1976 when some radicals and others tried, unsuccessfully, to force the Cambridge, Mass., city council to deny Harvard and M.I.T. the right to conduct recombinant DNA experiments. Ptashne helped lead the campaign to allow the experiments to take place.

Hosted Cuban scientist

Luis Herrera, scientific director, Centro de Ingeneria, Genetica y Biotechnologia, Havana, Cuba, in the 1980s, spent three months working in the lab of Dr. Mark Ptashne at Harvard

Federation of American Scientists

In 2009 Mark Ptashne served on the Board of Sponsors of the Federation of American Scientists.

References

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