Oral history interview with Paul D. Gollnick

2023-01-10T15:35:07-05:00

Paul D. Gollnick was born and mostly raised in Pullman, Washington. For one year when he was about 10 (or else in eighth grade) he and his family lived in Stockholm, Sweden, where his father was on sabbatical. Because his father was a scientist, an exercise physiologist, Paul was, from a young age, disposed to enter science himself. Reinforcing that desire were hours spent helping his father in his father's lab, and a high-school chemistry teacher who also inspired him. Paul's mother was a musician and music teacher but was unable to interest any of her children in music. Paul was not adept at most sports, he says, but he did take up and continues to enjoy golf. When he was deciding about college, he had to stay in state for financial reasons; he chose Washington State because he believed they had better science programs. He decided to major in biochemistry because he had discovered an interest in biology as well as chemistry and thought that biochemistry nicely combined the two. Biochemistry majors were new around the country at that time, so he felt also that the field would be dynamic and exciting. As an undergraduate he worked in Bruce McFadden's laboratory, producing an enzyme inhibitor. Realizing that working in pure science would require a graduate degree, he entered Iowa State University. At Iowa State Gollnick had hoped to work with Stanley Cox, who was studying gene expression in HeLa cells, but Cox was not headed for tenure, so Gollnick ended up working for Jack Horowitz. In Horowitz's lab Gollnick worked on nucleic acids and tRNA. Though he was frustrated at having to use the old-fashioned nuclear magnetic resonance technique because Horowitz had declared, "No recombinant DNA in my centrifuge," Gollnick says that, "in retrospect it was fine." While at Iowa State Gollnick met and married Sandra Oppel, a classmate. Together they went to Stanford, where for four years, Gollnick did postdoc work in Charles Yanofsky's lab and Sandra worked for DNAX. Gollnick's research was going nowhere, so when she left the lab, Mitzi Yukoda gave Gollnick her work on subcloning and sequencing mtrb. With Yanofsky's permission and with TRAP (trp RNA-attenuation protein) in hand, Gollnick applied for faculty positions. He accepted an assistant professorship at SUNY Buffalo, and his wife was able to find a job at Roswell Park Cancer Center. Gollnick continues his study of TRAP in B. subtilis and his collaborative work with Robert S. Phillips on tryptophanase. He has since become an associate professor and received tenure. Gollnick teaches a great deal and likes it very much. He also continues to publish and to work occasionally at the bench.