George Rusten (1913-1988)
"I guess I was born with an interest in science…When I was a kid I used to de-wing flies to see what made them work.”
- —George W. Rusten
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In 1948, parasitologist Dr. D. Jane Taylor in the aforementioned Laboratory of Tropical Diseases needed a lab technician. She had noticed Rusten’s adeptness in the glassware washing room and took him on as a lab technician where she then taught him surgical procedures and other laboratory techniques.
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By 1961 he was a busy research technician supervising attenuated virus testing (including polio virus) in more than 100 monkeys at one time in the Laboratory of Viral Immunology (and eventually its offshoot, the Laboratory of Pathology) in the DBS, working with Dr. Ruth Kirschstein.
Like Dr. Taylor, Dr. Kirschstein mentored Rusten and fought for his promotion to a GS-11 rank.
Rusten had always had an interest in science and what began as a temporary job as an unskilled laborer led to a lifelong career in the laboratory.
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Worked in Building 29, Rooms 209, 512, and 516. |
Publications:
- “Lab Aid Rewarded For His Devices: Mr. G.W. Rusten Was an Unskilled Laborer” in The NIH Record October 28, 1949.
- https://nihrecord.nih.gov/sites/recordNIH/files/pdf/1949/NIH-Record-1949-10-28.pdf.
- “NIH Spotlight: George Rusten” in The NIH Record October 10, 1961. https://nihrecord.nih.gov/sites/recordNIH/files/pdf/1961/NIH-Record-1961-10-10.pdf.