"What a galaxy of genius might we not create!"

• —Francis Galton, 1865

"What a galaxy of genius might we not create!" burbled Francis Galton in 1865, exuberant about his conception of a voluntary human breeding program, to be informed by Darwinism.  Subpar intelligence, he was convinced, lay at the root of poverty, promiscuity, disease, and antisocial behavior of all kinds.  A similar enthusiasm girds contemporary social and behavioral genetics, or "sociogenomics."  In fact, every revolution in our understanding of heredity prompts a new wave of enthused hereditarianism: Darwinism, Mendelism, cytogenetics, molecular biology, genomics.  With every advance, scientists and the public ask new versions of the same questions, such as: Can we identify born criminals and stop crime before it starts? and, Is genius born or made?  Although the questions persist, technology and society are ever evolving.  This lecture will examine continuity and change in our enduring impulse to take control of our own evolution, as well as the benefits and risks of our perennial drive to understand, and improve, human nature.

Link now to https://videocast.nih.gov/ical.ics?live=44029 to add this to your Outlook calendar.  

This event is sponsored by the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum.  Our office advances the historical understanding of the biomedical research conducted at the NIH by documenting, preserving, and interpreting the history of significant NIH achievements, scientists, and policies.  Visit us at https://history.nih.gov.    
  

Flier: Lecture Series_N_Comfort_sm.pdf (PDF – 3.13 MB)

Date/Time: October 28, 2021/12:00-1:00PM 

Videocast link: https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=44029

Barbara Faye Harkins, who retired as the archivist in the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum (ONHM) in March 2020, had two passions: helping researchers get the information they needed, and making historical documents and photos easily available to the public. She is recognized by scientists, historians, economists, and students in many papers and books for helping them secure accurate information or just the right image. Once an inquiry was posed to her, she would not stop in her quest for the answer. Even after the onset of a serious illness in 2017 forced her to work from home, she could hardly bear to leave a question unanswered. Sadly Barbara died on July 25, 2021.

Barbara, born in Alabama in 1955, received an M.A. in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin. During her career, she was a special collections librarian and archivist at Murray State University, Oregon State University, and the Reynolds Historical Library at the University of Alabama. She joined the ONHM in May 2008.

At ONHM, Barbara managed a large and growing oral history collection. She was a champion of preserving NIH’s digital history, overseeing the archiving of the websites of the agency’s many institutes and centers for inclusion on the Internet Archive, an American digital library that provides free access to collections of digitized materials. Working with the NIH Library, she ensured that many historical NIH documents, such as annual reports, were scanned and made available to the public on the Internet Archive. She also undertook a massive reorganization of the ONHM archival collection, working with the National Archives and Records Administration and the National Library of Medicine to make sure that permanent and historically important collections went to the proper caretakers.

Barbara is survived by her sister and her family, and many grateful ONHM patrons.

We celebrate the life, work, and friendship of Daniel Lednicer, Ph.D., who joined our office as a volunteer in 2006, and actively contributed to our mission until his death last week at the age of 91.  He is greatly missed.

Never one to be idle, Dan came to the Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum after finishing a volunteer gig at the National Building Museum, where he had scanned and cataloged 8,000 photographs of the Kress Variety Store Collection. He was also volunteering at the Holocaust Museum, entering thousands of names into the Victims and Survivors Database. Over the past 15 years, Dan catalogued our library, identified museum objects, scanned hundreds of instrument manuals and photographs, and wrote biographies of prominent NIH scientists. We were about to ask him for his help to prepare oral histories of NIH staff working on the COVID-19 pandemic when he died.

Dan brought more than his volunteer talents to us; he was an accomplished research chemist who wrote more than 70 peer-reviewed papers, held 69 patents for chemical compounds, and wrote at least 17 books, including seven volumes of Organic Chemistry and Drug Synthesis.  His last book, Antineoplastic Drugs: Organic Syntheses, was published in 2015. His professional knowledge made him uniquely qualified to answer our questions regarding chemicals in our collection and the public’s questions about such things as the safety of chemicals found in antique children’s chemistry sets.

When he was 10 years old, Dan’s family fled the Nazi invasion of Belgium, eventually immigrating to  New York City in 1944. He received a B.S. in Chemistry at Antioch College in Ohio. He got his Ph.D. in 1955 from Ohio State University as one the first students to use a National Science Foundation fellowship. His thesis was entitled The Synthesis and Resolution of Hexahelicene. 

At G.D. Searle & Co., Dan worked on anabolic steroids for use by burn victims, but he only stayed a short time before leaving for a thirty-year career in private industry at UpJohn Co., Mead Johnson & Co., Adria Laboratories, and ABC Laboratories. In these companies, he was director of their pharmaceutical research. He is best known for discovering the synthesis of Bromadol, an opioid analgesic selective for the μ-opioid receptor with a potency between codeine and morphine. In 1989, Dan joined the National Cancer Institute at the NIH where he was project officer for synthetic, analytical, and drug formulation contracts in the Developmental Therapeutics Program.

But one of Dan’s first loves was art. As a young man, he struggled with whether to become an artist or a scientist before choosing chemistry. When he retired, he picked up a paintbrush and began a satisfying and successful avocation of painting miniatures. These paintings were seldom over 4” x 4” and some were much smaller. He won many awards for his paintings, the last being bestowed in 2018. He always painted these tiny and beautiful scenes without the aid of a magnifying glass. 

But what we will miss more than his volunteer willingness and chemical expertise is Dan himself. He always had a good story and good memory of what was happening in other people’s lives. He constantly bragged about his children.  And he was determined not to let any physical problem overcome him. His passing leaves a hole in our office and our hearts.