Quotes by Stanley N. Cohen

Nature is that lovely lady to whom we owe polio, leprosy, smallpox, syphilis, tuberculosis, cancer.

I have received much recognition during my research career and I am most grateful.

I was born in Brooklyn in 1922. Both my mother and father were Russian Jewish emigrants who came to America in the early 1900's. My father was a tailor and my mother, a housewife. Though of limited education themselves, they instilled in me the values of intellectual achievement and the use of whatever talents I possessed.

I was educated in the public school system of New York City and was bright enough to be accepted at Brooklyn College.

In 1976 I was appointed an American Cancer Society Research Professor and in 1986, Distinguished Professor. The works recognized by this Nobel Prize are clearly a group effort of achievement as may be seen from the names associated with our publications on EGF. They share in this honor.

My initial interest, just prior to my work on cytokines, was on cell-mediated immunity and delayed hypersensitivity, mostly with respect to the cells that populated these reactions.

My Ph.D. thesis concerned the metabolic mechanism by which the end product of nitrogen metabolism in the earthworm is switched from ammonia to urea during starvation. I remember spending my nights collecting over 5,000 worms from the University campus green.

My scientific interests throughout my undergraduate days were directed to cell biology and especially the mysteries of embryonic development.