星期一下午我第二次去听了 POLLY MATZINGER 的讲座。她真是一个非常特立独行的女科学家。记录一下。
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polly_Matzinger
POLLY MATZINGER 是从一个不同寻常的职业生涯 ( 根据她的简历 ): 包括在丹佛的一家花花公子俱乐部的花花公子兔女郎，酒吧女招待，爵士音乐家，木匠，训狗者和科学论派教徒 (1952 年兴起的一个新的宗教教派，美国著名影星 TOM CRUISE 就是这个教派的 ) 开始走向科学的。 1974 年她在经历了断断续续的学校生活，从事了各种工作以后，最后在一个加州大学戴维斯分校教师们经常去的酒吧里做女招待，在这里她遇见了大学野生动物课程的头儿 ROBERT SCHWAB 教授，教授注意到她的才华，劝说她走上了科学的道路。
在她早期发表的文章中，在实验医学杂志上的一篇文章中，她与 GALADRIEL MIRKWOOD 是共同作者。后来发现 MIRKWOOD 是她的一只阿富汗猎犬，据她所述和其他的共同作者一样参与了研究。 MATZINGER 说从此她是主要作者的文章就被这个杂志禁止了 “ 直到编辑去世 ” 。在到外地进行科学报告的时候，有时候她根据场合把头发染成绿色。尽管她近年来发表的文章不再有狗作为共同作者，她仍然是一个很热心的牧羊犬训练者；她和她的两只博德牧羊犬 CHARLIE 和 LILY 在2005 年爱尔兰 TULLAMORE 世界牧羊犬决赛中参与了代表美国参赛的队伍。
目前 POLLY MATZINGER 是国立过敏性疾病和感染性疾病研究院的部门主管 ( 她的实验室被叫作鬼魂实验室) ，她的威胁模型已经成为很多免疫学家的一个重要的参考要点，许多学习免疫的学生的灵感； 在她近年来的理论论著中可以看到，这一模型自1994 年宣布诞生以来，已经经历了许多细微的修改。
对很多人而言她是科学精神及其开放性的一个代表。
Polly Matzinger took to science from an unusual background career path which included (according to her C.V. ) stints as a Playboy Bunny at a Playboy Club in Denver , a bar waitress , a jazz musician, a carpenter , a dog trainer and a Scientologist . In 1974 Polly Matzinger had dropped in and out of college for years and worked at various jobs before ending up waitressing at a bar frequented by faculty from the University of California, at Davis and here she met Professor Robert Schwab, the head of the university's wildlife program who noticed her talent and persuaded her to take to science.
In one of her first publications, she coauthored a paper with Galadriel Mirkwood for the Journal of Experimental Medicine [1] . It was later revealed that Mirkwood was her Afghan Hound which according to her was as much involved in research as many other coauthors. Matzinger says that papers on which she was a major author were then barred from the journal "until the editor died". When travelling for scientific talks, she sometimes dyes her hair green for the occasion. Although no dogs have been coauthors of any of her recent papers, she is an avid sheepdog trainer, and, with her two Border Collies, Charlie and Lily, was on the team that represented the United States at the 2005 World Sheepdog Finals in Tullamore Ireland.
Polly Matzinger is now a section head at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (her lab is called the Ghost Lab) and her Danger Model has become an important reference point for many immunologists and an inspiration to many students of immunology; it has undergone various minor modifications since its birth announcement in 1994, which can be seen in her more recent theoretical writing.
To many she stands as a symbol of the scientific spirit and its openness.
