The $8 an hour shuttle driver behind a Nobel Prize

Aren't you momentarily stunned when your cab driver or your shuttle driver at Hertz or your local car dealership says something that really makes you think? Don't you wonder how someone so smart ended up driving you around?

Please, therefore, consider what it must be like to be Douglas Prasher.

Prasher, or as he should be known, Dr. Prasher, makes around $8 an hour as a courtesy shuttle driver for an Alabama car dealer. And he's been stunned to hear that the fruits of his work have led to a Nobel Prize for chemistry--which just happened to be awarded to two other scientists.

A couple of years ago, Prasher was involved in a slightly different kind of shuttle--the one occasionally shot up by NASA. And a few years before that, in 1992 to be precise, he isolated the gene that makes jellyfish glow in the dark. At the time, he believed this discovery could be used to study some of humankind's most debilitating diseases. He was right.

It's just that at the very moment he made his breakthrough, his funding, which had once come from the American Cancer Society, ran out.

This picture was not taken at a Toyota dealership

(Credit: CC Pheezy)

He could have kept his work to himself. Instead, he mailed a couple of test tubes to Roger Tsien at the University of California and Martin Chalfie at Columbia University.

"It was more important to me to hand over the tool to other scientists with the funding than to have individual glory," Prasher told London's Daily Mail.

So how did he end up driving those nice folks in Alabama to and from Bill Penney's excellent and, no doubt, munificent Toyota dealership?

"After I gave up my work on the jellyfish, I eventually found another dream job, with the U.S. space program, but I was laid off in 2006 and I haven't been able to get another scientific position," Prasher said.

Prasher has three children and, apparently, had just taken out a large mortgage when he was laid off by NASA. But is it really possible that someone with so much evident ability can't get a more appropriate position in America's scientific community than helping to shift a Scion?

It's not as if Chalfie and Tsien don't concede Prasher's role. Tsien even sent him an e-mail to apologize. But doesn't Prasher deserve something more than a little acknowledgment?

If this were a movie--and perhaps it will be--Chalfie and Tsien would visit Prasher and offer him a cut of the $1.5 million Nobel Prize.

And then, in the last scene, he would get another knock on his door--a new sponsor to finance his future research. That sponsor would be Toyota, wouldn't it?

You're going to tell me life isn't like the movies, right?

[dsprinkle2]

I hope that they are considering offering him some of the money considering his current needs. Maybe with enough publicity he can find a better paying job in science that will benefit us all in the future. My hopes and prayers are with the driver and his family.

[ChrisMatyszczyk]

Yes, it doesn't seem entirely fair, does it? I wonder why he hasn't managed to get a better job in science. Enough halfwits in it, aren't there?

Chris

[jdcrepeau]

I work with Doug and he has apparently had quite a few job offers pour in...I think maybe he is a little overwhelmed by everything though.

[IE_Dover]

"It was more important to me to hand over the tool to other scientists with the funding than to have individual glory,"

Selflessness and concern for others in an era dedicated to individual glory. Thank you Dr. Prasher your ingenuity and effort.

[a85]

The man should have got the Nobel too. This is a disgrace. Poor guy. It's just like the British man who 'invented the ipod'. At least Apple gave him a free one.

[ikramerica--2008]

This is nothing like that. Apple never claimed to invent the MP3 player. They took an existing technology, one they were late to the game with, and made it user friendly.

This guy actually laid the groundwork for the Nobel Prize and should have been acknowledged. But the Nobel committee has become a joke already, with their political views dictating more than the peace prize. Their economic prize was politically motivated, and who knows if their chemistry prize is not influenced by other factors.

[miroslodki]

Glad to hear this might have a happy ending
amazed by the selflessness

it also goes to show that qualified people often go begging for work - but are kept out of the labor force because they are too qualified for more junior roles - until they tumble down to the bottle washer roles

everyone talks of human resources being a strategic asset - but few actually embrace it.

on behalf of all the other overqualified and unemployed/underemployed
wishing you only the very best!!!

[Dr_Zinj]

Kind of makes the American Cancer Society, and NASA, look like a couple of incompetent, bumblign fools, doesn't it?

By the way, the ACA can cross me off as a contributor to them via the United Way. I think I'll send their donation to the Boy Scouts of America next year.

[marc_90292]

It is not going to happen. This case reminds me of the scientist who discovered a method to regenerate a partial liver resect in vitro back in the late 80s. He sold his German publishing company to a New York publisher to raise the money to fund clinical trials. The buyer not only never paid the promised $2 million but had the seller advance another $120,000 in interim operating costs of which they reimbursed only $50,000, leaving the seller and his bank holding $70,000 in debt.
He sued but got nowhere (the New York Court holding that a party to a contract cannot rely on the promise of the other), only years later to find out that the defendant paid elected officials in a pattern matching the unique adverse litigation event pattern. Meanwhile - 15 years later - some 450,000 patients diagnosed with fulminant liver failure died needlessly that could have been saved with the regeneration method.

[razor.rodriguez]

I bet that if he could Rap or shoot hoops he wouldn't have a problem. That's the problem with this country right now; people do not value intellect in science and engineering like they should. That's why we're trailing behind most Asian countries in math and science. All that matters now days to kids is wearing the coolest clothes, following their favorite sports team and getting rich fast. They are not entirely to blame. The media floods the headlines with celebrity gossip and how many millions the next football contract is worth. I bet less than 5% of high school students know even one Nobel Prize Winner's name.
Nobody makes a big deal about the 4.0 GPA student graduating from MIT but they sure plaster all over the news how much Madonna is paying her soon to be ex-husband!

[ilyabm]

Not sharing the prize I can understand, but at least those two could offer him a job.

[masonx]

This is an extremely illustrative example the true legacy of George W. Bush's administration and what their lack of ability costs. We will be uncovering the many secret wounds to this country and its people - that this sorely incompetent elected official (and those uninformed and ignorant voters who elected him) inflicted on this country for generations.

[admiral100]

Really? I'd say it was part of it, however why was Al Gore given a prize? Why not to environmental scientists that have contributed far more to the environment? Why not meteorologists? climatologists? engineers? Instead a politician got the nod, albeit with partial kudos to the IPCC. and even most of them are only partially qualified. I think the last 16 years, not 8, have been a blight on American education and well being. I also agree with the other poster that stated that our society is also to blame. When I was a kid, you would at least on occasion hear kids say they wanted to be a doctor or an astronaut when they grew up. Now, like my 5-year-old niece, kids today want to grow to be just like Britney Spears or Michael Jordan. You rarely hear them say something like, "When I grow up I want to be a software developer!"

[darkderekdark]

Chalfie and Tsien should lose all of the funding that they will receive from Prasher's finding, until they do the right thing by Prasher. Life is not ALL about money or ALL about fame or ALL about ego. If either of them worked for me, I would fire them on the spot and hire Prasher instead.

BTW, did they cite Prasher in their work or did they plagerize his work?

[pattiharrington]

Why do we need more HB1 visas again?

[ballssalty]

I thought we didn't have enough scientific or math based citizens that we need to increase the H-1B visas? Seems to me companies demands to increase H-1B visas is because they want cheap labor. If a Nobel prize winning scientist can't find a job I think that's pretty telling.

[regulator1956]

How much cheaper than $8 per hour?

Yes, I agree the system is rigged, but it's not all about $$

[Henry Michael Karshis]

The sad part is there are too many good smart folks like Douglas Prasher who simply do the right thing and end up struggling to survive and support their families.

And as for Roger Tsien sending him an e-mail to apologize. Wow Roger, how generous of you - you should run for office! Your family must be so proud of you, Martin Chalfie, and all of your achievements!

You rock Douglas Prasher - all the best sir - just remember: the truth has a habit of finding it's way!

peace,

HMK

[fdunn3]

The true scientist shares his findings as data is only as important as it is known.

This is a true shame to the Nobel Committee and all subsequent recipients.

[chash360]

I will remember you Dr. Douglas Prasher, for your contribution to society, and the selfless sacrifice you have made. Socrates would have been proud, I hope you do not have to share his fate....

As for the H1-B promoters, and job offshoring head hunters, curse you and your greed! GW Bush and the rest of your cronnies, just look at what you have done to this country! I hope you have not brought past the point of no return.

[Web Hero]

All I can say is "Ditto" to most all posts.

[zeplin10ten]

"You're going to tell me life isn't like the movies, right?"

No. Life is not like a "good" movie. It's like a bad, lost and wandering movie. Or, like the end of a series of bad, lost movies where the main characters (heroes) are anti-heroic, larger than life figures which resemble real people only in the way that, in Greek theatre, characters represented human masks of abstract, concept-life.

In the current Douglas Prasher, shuttle-driver movie in a movie, we can see another glimpse of life beyond the dueling masks of "humility" and "conquest." And ask, if "humility" and "conquest" are seen, not as opposite and necessary poles of a universal law of metaphysics, but as elements of mental evolution -- then:

1) In terms of the universal laws of effectuality, which is more evolved, a) humility, b) or conquest?

2) Which is a) a necessary element of the creative, art and science life that's trying to boogie in our heads, and b) which is a hindrance?

3) Do our heads free-associate a) on their own, or b) only in response to our will power and control?

4) And if we, now, can see dramatic masks as masks, then isn't that because a) with a light turned on inside our own brain cells, we can see the life behind the mask of concept-life, or b) huh?

If you're answering "b" above, then you're a) missing something, b) wrong, and c) on the side that's rooting for the species' belly-up.