He Was My Mentor

The first time I met Keith was soon after the Dolly paper was published and he was already very famous in this field. However, I knew of him before Dolly, because he wrote many important papers and reviews, and I learned about nuclear transfer from those papers. Therefore, in my mind, he was one of my mentors even before I met him. I had just started as a postdoc at the University of Hawaii, and it was my dream to meet with such a famous scientist. As far as the ordinary post doc is concerned, the top scientists, including Keith, live in a different world. However, when I met with him, he was very friendly, and I will never forget that—I was extremely touched.

Unfortunately, I cannot speak English well, and sometimes I could not understand his English. He tried to explain things to me using simple English as much as possible. I told him “English is much more difficult than Science.” Then, he laughed a lot and told me “Teru, you have strongest micromanipulation techniques in the world, but probably you do not have any language capacity. But do not worry; nobody can use micromanipulatior at same level as you, including me.” These words highly motivating for me; I was so happy and almost crying. If he had not told me that, maybe I would have given up hope to be a scientist. With his kind advice, I could concentrate on my experiments even if my English was bad. I believe that he was a great scientist not only as an experimentalist but also as teacher. I very much wanted to work with him for longer. I hope and pray for the soul of Keith.