• George Rusten
• Started working at NIH in 1941 as an unskilled laborer.
• His first lab job was in 1943 in the glassware washing room of the Laboratory of Tropical Diseases.
• In 1948, Dr. Jane Taylor noticed his skill and took him on as a lab technician and taught him surgical procedures and other laboratory techniques.
• Rusten won an award for superior accomplishment in 1949 for creating three pieces of equipment that better facilitated his laboratory work.
• By 1961 he was a research technician supervising attenuated polio virus testing in monkeys in the Laboratory of Viral Immunology in the Division of Biologics Standards, working with Dr. Ruth Kirschstein.
• 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.
• Worked in Building 29, Rooms 209, 512, and 516.

Bibliography:

Kirschstein, Ruth. Interview by Dr. Peggy Dillon, History Associates. August 24, 1998. Transcript on file, NIH History & Stetten Museum, Bethesda, MD. NIH Office of History & Stetten Museum. Telephone Directory, National Institutes of Health. Misc. years. Bethesda, MD.

The NIH Record. “Lab Aid Rewarded for His Devices: Mr. G.W. Rusten Was Unskilled Laborer.” October 28, 1949. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, 1949. Accessed September 21, 2021. https://nihrecord.nih.gov/sites/recordNIH/files/pdf/1949/NIH-Record-1949-10-28.pdf.

Stabler, E.K., editor. “NIH Spotlight.” The NIH Record, Volume XIII, Issue No. 20. October 10, 1961. Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, 1961. Accessed September 21, 2021. https://nihrecord.nih.gov/sites/recordNIH/files/pdf/1961/NIH-Record-1961-10-10.pdf.