Love and Science

Long before he became one of the world's most celebrated microbiologists, Jan Vilcek began life in Slovakia as the child of Jewish parents at a time when Jews were being exterminated all across Europe. As a young man growing up in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War ended, Vilcek went to medical school and chose a career in microbiology at a time when the field was still in its infancy. While still in his twenties, he hosted the first international conference on interferon and published a paper in the prestigious journal Nature. Fleeing Communist Czechoslovakia with his wife Marica, Vilcek continued his research at NYU Medical School, going on to secure 38 patents in microbiology, and creating some of the most popular and trailblazing medicines of our age.

In Love and Science: a memoir, Vilcek tells his story with great verve—how, improbably, the enormous obstacles he faced went hand in hand with a charmed life of scientific discovery, and perhaps most importantly, how love and friendship were the keys, not only to his happiness, but also to his success.

After his arrival in the US in 1965 without money or a job, he soon went on to spearhead some of the key advances in the production of human fibroblast interferon and related proteins, and through his research into tumor necrosis factor (TNF) made advances that led to the discovery of new genes and proteins and signaling pathways, opening up whole new areas of medical innovation that have led to several important new treatments for a wide range of diseases.

Love and Science shows how advances in science sometimes result from the greatest disappointments, and how achievement in medical research is usually a team effort, where ideas are shared, where friendship matters and love is as important as brilliance, and luck as important as knowledge, and, over time, the least expected thing sometimes becomes the most important. In Vilcek's case the vaunted cure for cancer that many saw in interferon, even gracing magazine covers, never materialized. However, out of the ashes of that hope came many related treatments that have changed countless lives and alleviated much suffering.

JAN T. VILCEK is professor of Microbiology at NYU Langone Medical Center. Born in Bratislava, Slovakia (then Czechoslovakia), where he also earned his MD and PhD degrees, Vilcek together with his wife, Marica Vilcek, an art historian, immigrated to the US in 1965 where he joined the faculty of NYU School of Medicine. He is among the earliest researchers of interferon, an important immune system protein. Dr. Vilcek's contributions to the understanding of proteins that control the body's defenses were instrumental in the development of the anti-inflammatory drug RemicadeR, the first member of a new class therapeutics called TNF blockers that are now widely used for the treatment of Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and other chronic inflammatory disorders. Dr. Vilcek has published more than 350 scholarly papers, and written or edited several professional books, He is also named as co-inventor on 38 U.S. patents. For his discoveries and his philanthropy, Vilcek received a 2013 National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Obama.