Since Jones, I've done quite a bit.  I went to Rice (my mother,
father, and all aunts and uncles had, as if I had a choice) (BA in Chemistry
1966, Magna cum Laude & Phi Beta Kappa).  Since I wasn't at all good in the
lab, I went into theoretical chemistry at Caltech where they taugh me to
speak ENGLISH (not Texan) and how to do scientific computations.  I received
a PhD in 1972.  I went to Paris as a post-doc.  During that year, I married
Jane Crawford who had been a fellow graduate student at Caltech.  She was
postdocing in Aaron Klug's lab in Cambridge, England.  For about six months,
we had an appartment in Cambridge, UK, an apartement near Paris, a car in
Cambridge, a car in Paris, a car in Santa Barbara, & a car in Houston.  In
Dec. 72, I moved to Cambridge and switched to molecular biology:
haemoglobin.  After 3 1/2 years and a daughter (Margaret Catherine Louise),
we moved to Heidleberg where we both worked at the European Molecular
Biological Laboratory.  We had a second daughter in Heidelberg (Sarah
Johanna).  We moved back to the USA in 1979, on my 35th b'day to glorified
postdocs at Harvard.  After almost 4 years, and a son (Andrew Crawford), I
took a job in industry at Genex in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
Genex was a bit unorganized so I was free to fool around and
invented something called "single-chain antibodies".  Inventing felt good,
but Genex didn't seem able to hang onto any of the value, so in 1987 with a
friend I started a company called Protein Engineering Corp.  There, I and
other employees invented a method called "phage display" and got US and
foreign patents on the method.  It was located in Cambridge, MA, but I
didn't move up to Massachusetts.  I'm still commuting after 14 years.  I
drive about 500 miles each way about 40 times a year.  In 1995, PEC ran out
of money and we merged with a company called Biotage to form Dyax Corp.  Our
patents on phage display provide a technology upon which we are building a
biopharmaceutical company.  We went public in 2000.  I'm Chief Scientific
Officer and still put in 10-12 hours per day.  We have two drugs in the
clinic and are building a very good pipe line.
Our children have mostly grown up.  Margaret went to Simons Rock in
Mass and then to Columbia for an M.A.  She is married to Aziz Huq.  Just to
keep up family traditions, she is working for Amnesty International in
London and Aziz is clerking for a federal judge in Manhattan.  Sarah went to
McGill in Montreal.  She is working in an architect's office in Manhattan.
Andrew is in his freshman year at Towson University north of Baltimore.
About two years ago I caught the sailing bug.  I've done some
courses and belong to a club that has boats in Boston harbor.  Last summer,
Jane and I chartered a 45' Cape Dorey ketch in Maine.  It was great.  Some
day I want to sail my own boat to the Azores (I think).
I look forward to seeing many of you 40 years on at the reunion.

Robert Charles LADNER, Ph. D.
Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer
Dyax Corp.
One Kendall Square, Suite 623
Cambridge, MA  02139
(v) (617) 225-2500 x 235
(F) (617) 225-2501