It seems appropriate to state at the outset and for the record, that I am a big nerd. While other nerds collect stamps, coins, or Star Wars action figures, I collect Nobel Laureates. I have a small black book wherein I jot down eclectic bits including, near the front, a list of Nobel Laureates whom I have had the pleasure of meeting. The term “meeting” bears specific criteria. I cannot simply have attended a lecture or even managed to ask a question. I have to go up afterwards and shake hands or have a little one on one exchange. Also, if I was drinking a beer when we met they get a little star by their name (as do Har Gobind Khorana , Harold Varmus, and Richard Roberts ). I told you I was a nerd. Anyway, now and again I wonder who will get the call from Sweden next. Every year for some time I have held a Nobel Prize pool in the lab. So far, nobody in the pool has gotten it right which is fair enough considering that the Nobel Selection Committee is sometimes accused of missing the mark. I have a few favorites of my own. At the top of my list are Mario Capecchi, Oliver Smithies, and Martin Evans , the same trio that shared a Lasker not long ago. However, if I had my way I’d open it up a little bit more with two awards as follows: Martin Evans, Gail Martin, and Leroy Stevens (for pluripotent stem cells) and then Rudy Jaenisch, Mario Capecchi, and Oliver Smithies (for transgenics and homologous recombination; platform technologies that have made lab animal research the powerhouse it is today). The prize looms ever nearer, who will it be?

Hey, if anyone on the Nobel Committee is reading this, what happened with Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty ? Hello?!!