[Lesley Williams Brunet] We will let the researchers
sort it out.
We're on that.
You were writing him about,
it was part of the justification for setting up
this center and you
were talking about the banding and how
it was especially useful
in leukemia and things like that,
but there were a lot of cancers that
they haven't been analyzed fully by banding and
you still need to work on that. (crosstalk)
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] I'm a vegan. Was that
talking about the cell center is to preserve the cells.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] To preserve the cells?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Uh huh.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] To?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] From the patient's.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Right. Well, and just have
a whole center to be looking at.
(noise) I'm going to ask you more about this.
Let's see. The cytogenetic unit,
a cell center unit to
contain cell culture facilities, cell bank (crosstalk) .
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] I think that was the idea that
we will preserve cells from cancer patients,
a certain cancer and this is called a cell bank.
I have an enormous cell bank.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] No. Is this the living zoo? That's something else.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] That's not the real zoo.
(laughing). It's including the zoo.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Okay.
T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) [Hsu] Yeah. I think we
have the largest collection of
cells from all world monkeys,
all world primates, from African monkeys,
Asiatic monkeys, naturally chimpanzees,
gorillas and all those.
We have the largest collection.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] When was this cell bank started?
I'm seeing the letters about it.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Quite a long time,
but there was improvement.
I thought I wanted to have them preserved in cold.
We put the cells in a little ampio,
but at the beginning we didn't have
a liquid nitrogen and we had to use dry ice.
But dry ice can keep the temperature (crosstalk)
Lesley Williams [Brunet] Too cold?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Not too cold. Not cold enough.
One time we ruined a lot
of preserved cultures because of a hurricane.
During the hurricane, the dry ice company could
not come to add the dry ice.
So the temperature warmed up.
We lost a lot of cells.
But since then,
we use liquid nitrogen and the tank is full and also
is set with alarm in
case the nitrogen company
will come to add liquid nitrogen.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] People from all over the world write you for cells?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Pardon.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] People from all over the world contact
you for cells or they used to?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] No, we had the rule now.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] You can't get them?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] You have a lot of rigmaroles to do, because of money.
In other words, if I gave my frozen cells to somebody,
this was a recent rule and this
somebody develop something patentable,
and then they institute
on their share of that because I gave to them.
So it's a lot harder now to give.
Previously I gave it to anybody who wants to,
and somebody will give to me too.
Someone in NIH once gave me a batch of cells belonging
to some mice near the Himalaya Mountains.
We exchange for that.
But now it's money.
Money talks. There are a lot of more restrictions.
For science, I was willing to give to anybody.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Let's see. We got off track somehow.
I'm confused about the evolution of cytogenetics center,
and how your laboratory has
developed and has changed names.
I think other people studying Anderson
would be a little confused too.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Yeah, Since Dr. Haas established
my group as a section of cell biology,
that lasted until early in 1980's,
and they became the department of cell biology.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] So it changed from a section to a department.
T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) [Hsu] To a department.
The department chairman,
I was, had a lot more power than the section chief.
I had more budget from the institute,
even though I would apply for grants.
That time the grants are much easier to get.
I was very rich.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] You're talking about the '80s or up until the '80s?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] After 80's. That time grants,
no problem to get.
In the 1950s to 80s, I became famous.
So I got a lot of help.
I was a member of the NIH study section.
I want to tell you this story, very interesting.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Okay.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] The study section meets two or three times a year.
Not necessarily in Bethesda, but other towns.
Sometime we went to Colorado,
some scenic place to be.
Then there is a chairman of that study section.
Usually meet three days,
the chairman will have all the members to have dinner
together for once and
he pays from the budget all that.
It was very lively dinner.
In NIH, different institute will
have representatives to sit
in there in case somebody has questions.
Then there was a gentleman from,
I forgot, which institute?
Man.
We all invite them to eat too,
and this old gentleman,
his favorite subject was
to talk about his fishing trips and hunting trips.
Nobody wants to listen to him.
So I feel very sorry for him.
I sit by his side and talk to him.
So he thought I was a good friend that because
I was nice to him. That paid off.
That time Bill Brinkley was with me,
but he was a postdoc.
He could not apply for grant,
and I applied for a grant.
That time it was a quarter of million dollars.
It was a big sum that time.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] It's like the late '60s?
T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) [Hsu] Yeah, '60s.
Naturally,
we all knew a lot of things about NIH,
and I was told
cell biology had a lot more money than genetics.
So I wrote my application towards the cell biology area.
This old gentleman called me.
He said, "You can't get this grant,
because cell biology is
full and your application, especially so large.
They won't approve it."
I said, "What can I do." He said "Genetics has money."
I say "I was told genetics has less money.
That's why I wrote towards the cell.
He said "Can you write little bit towards genetics?"
I say "Of course I can".
He said "But the time is short."
That was Tuesday. He said,
"You better get that."
Make up the addition towards
genetics tomorrow.
You finish that.
That time we didn't have a computer or anything.
I had three secretaries.
I got everybody involved, especially Bill Brinkley.
I will write down
page by page and the first secretary would type,
and then everybody else will read it, change it.
It gets second secretary type,
and then I would review it again.
The third secretary would type.
We worked for whole day.
I finally finished that by four o'clock.
This gentleman told me,
"You must send this by
special delivery and don't send it to NIH,
send to my home".
He said, "In NIH,
your letter will come in about three days later,
the whole thing is over. " Isn't that nice?
[Lesley Williams Brunet] So it get personal attention.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Yeah. I sent to his home.
He said, "I'll call you when I receive it here".
The next day, he called me, he said,
"I got your application theory model form".
He said, "I'll give my time".
Friday was the day they will determine it.
Because I was nice to him,
he called me again.
He said, "You're in.
You got to what you want."
Quote a million dollars.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] What was the grand for? Do you remember?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] For electron microscope with
Bill Brinkley and all that kind of thing.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Before that, you didn't have electron microscope
or there was (crosstalk) one that you had to share?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Yeah, that's right. That one
included one electron microscope,
our own without sharing.
Sometime you pay the bonus and
knowingly trying to be nice to people, you got a benefit.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Probably good. Now,
why was Bill Brinkley in physics?
Why was he in physics?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Well, I didn't have space for him (crosstalk) and
the electron microscope was theirs too.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Oh, I see. They had (crosstalk)
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Bill needs to use it.
The guy who had this microscope,
I don't know what his name is
Arthur Cole and he was a physicist.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] I'm sorry, what was his last name?
T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) [Hsu] Cole, C-O-L-E.
This was a Japanese-made.
He is so good that he would tell Bill Brinkley,
this is not good.
This place is not good.
The lens is bad at all.
He would tear them all apart and
put them back together next week and sure enough,
it will be increased in quality.
Then he found someone else is bad.
Every week he took it apart.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] I think that limited its use.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Yeah. Brinkley will do,
is he'll come in Saturday and Sunday after Arthur Cole
finished reassembling it he will use
those two days because he
knew next he's going to tear them apart.
(laughing) We did that way and during that time,
electron microscope work or fine structure
work very just beginning.
People do the sections of
cells from tissues never used cell culture,
with the cell culture.
We couldn't do a lot of experiments.
The weekly discussion as
to what experiment we should do the next one.
Because of this, Bill became very famous.
I mooched on his side,
I became famous too.
After I became the president of cell biology.
Oh yeah, by almost unknown.
But he was asked by that time the president,
we use one year.
The president is supposed to organize a symposium.
He asked Bill Brinkley to organize a symposium.
Is practically nobody,
and he came from our state.
His professor was a jerk.
He abused Bill Brinkley and all
this "Bill wants to
come to start all over again." I said, "No.
You have one more year,
get your PhD degree then come to me as a postdoc."
That year the president asked
Bill Brinkley practically nobody to organize a symposium.
This was a big honor and was in a big theater
and I found his old professor leaning against the wall.
I saw, I said, "How do you feel
your former graduate student now become a big shot."
[Lesley Williams Brunet] What did he say?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] He said, "Well, that's good."
(laughing) He is nobody.
Nobody paying attention to him at all.
He had no contributions.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Did Anderson or Dr.
Clark make any attempt to try and keep Bill Brinkley?
Why did he leave for UTMB? (crosstalk)
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] This way, I requested
to promote from postdoc
to assistant professor to associate professor.
But he got an offer from UTMB,
a full professor with all the money,
funds he needed, and all this.
The chairman at that time was a lady,
a very dear friend of mine.
Very unfortunately, she
died of breast cancer a few years later.
He went to UTMB
and a few years later because of the illness
and they just disbanded and he went to
University of Alabama at Birmingham for the affiliate.
Everywhere he went, he sets history.
This is the kind of man.
My proudest possession.
During the time,
I was chairman,
the laboratory had visitors just all over the world.
(crosstalk) had account,
he said from 33 different countries.
People came from such unknown place like,
not unknowns are insignificant country
like University of Kuwait,
from New Zealand, from Russia.
(noise) All of those.
I welcome all of them.
Lesley Williams [Brunet] I'm sorry.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] I said I welcome all of them.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Yes. I saw that in the correspondence.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Many times they come to learn
from me and they gave me something back.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Can you think of an example?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] For example, I got
a chicken expert on Portrait Department on Cornell,
and he told me how you can make experiments with
chick embryos by incubating whatever stage you wanted.
I didn't know the stage,
seven days the development of these, nine days.
He said, "You drill a little hole on the air puck area,
you can put drug in there
right on top of the embryo and you seal it.
Then one day, two days,
three day later you can study the cell,
the damage, the mutations of this on this chick embryo."
I learned something on that back.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] I see. We were talking
about the evolution of
cell biology and how
it went from a section to a department.
T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) [Hsu] Yeah. (noise)
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Then, of course, the state is a department.
(noise)
In '72,you proposed reorganizing cell biology into
four interrelated units housed
[together] cytogenetics unit,
electron microscopy units,
cell center unit with
the cell cultures, and the cell bank.
Did that all occur?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] They come up one at a time.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Because it seems like you wrote
a lot of letters.
In '79, you're writing about
establishing a tumor cytogenetic unit.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] I forgot all this. (laughing).
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Am I being too specific?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Dr. Lemater or somebody else.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Dr. Lemater, right. Let's see.
In other words, cytogenetic analysis
should be a guide for chemotherapy.
You are pushing more cytogenetics
for identifying pictures of tumors.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] I forgot about all these but,
Dr. Lemater is a good friend of ours.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] You seem to respond to actually these,
but it didn't seem to happen right away.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] No, it's not that easy.
Well, let me tell you a story about Dr. Lemater.
My wife and I built
a house and then we planted a lot trees.
It was a huge yard,
and we planted some pear trees.
They gave pears and
she is so good that she took the pears,
treated them with sugar or something,
and then dried them and put them into little paper.
Since Dr. Lemater treated her and me so well, she said,
"Why don't want you take a little box,
put some of these candied pear into the box,
and go to his home," this was Christmas time,
"say this was our Christmas present."
I say, okay. That time
his house was on that side of (inaudible) Boulevard.
I went and it was a big yard.
So I rang the bell on the gate
and then a voice said, "Who is this?"
I said, "This is Dr. T. C. Hsu.
I have some present for Dr.
Lemater." The voice said,
"Stay there, we'll come."
It actually came,
it was Lemater himself with
about three dogs following him.
I gave him.
I said this is Jeannette,
made this candid pear from
our own tree for you and this is Lemater up to enjoy.
From what we heard later
that Mrs. Lemater was out of town in Louisiana.
She came back that day and
found that box and she said, "What is this?"
Mickey Lemater said, "Oh,
it's T. C. and
Jeannette's Christmas present, candid pears."
When she opened, there were only the wrappings.
She found four of them.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] He ate all the rest?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] She ate all over this.
Ever since then, she said,
"You don't eat by yourself."
She said, "Let's share it."
He said, "It was so good so I kept eating."
I find only four left. I said I'll stop.
(laughing) It was funny.
But now the pears no longer bear fruit.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] The pollution has killed them?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] They are alive, but they're too old.
We built the house in 1969,
so this is more than 30 years.
They don't even bloom very much.
But we didn't want to chop them off because they
are old friends.
(laughing)
[Lesley Williams Brunet] I'm still trying to sort out
cell biology and how it's evolved.
Because when Haas stepped
down and went more into administration,
I thought David Anderson became temporary head.
T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) [Hsu] That's correct.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Was cytogenetics still a different section?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Still there, yeah. David,
naturally, he didn't want to exude a lot of authority.
He just a caretaker for the department.
I think he did a reasonably good job.
I understand he is still working here.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] Well, I think he's retired.
I've talked to him just briefly on the phone.
(crosstalk) Well, he retired I guess
like you and he's still working.
I wanted to ask you more about
him because I hope to interview him also.
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] The institute hasn't been treating me so nicely.
In I think was 1980,
I got the Burton Award.
That time the awardee would
have to make about one hour speech,
sort of like seminar type thing,
and it was the first time it was recorded.
[Lesley Williams Brunet] You changed city?
[T. C. (Tao-Chiuh) Hsu] Before television or something.
I used to have a copy,
but I don't know where it is.
I naturally acknowledge everybody, especially my wife.
I mentioned that we came to Houston,
we were penniless, we were very poor. (noise)