Farewell Words from Dr. Constantine Stratakis

I will use two of my most favorite quotes, the first given to me by Dr. J. Aidan Carney—my friend and collaborator, but truly also my mentor and a physician par excellence . In his Mayo Clinic office, he had a poster with the quote “Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought,” by Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine). Dr. Carney gave this poster to me when he retired from the clinic, and I displayed it proudly in my NIH laboratory office. The other is from Dr. Albert Einstein: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed,” translated from Einstein’s book Mein Weltbild (1934)¹ .

In other words, curiosity, imagination, and drive are the jet engines that move forward any scientist and were my engines, too. Throughout my life, I have been driven by the observations I made “where others did not see anything,” and my creativity and energy are driven by the fascination of the “mysterious.”

The other important point during these formative years has been the networking that is needed for anybody’s career: the friends I made early on are still the most important contributors to my work today; or if not the same, their friends and former trainees are.

It is also clear that, like any one in academics, I owe a lot to my trainees: I have had the fortune of having, over the years, wonderful people that have worked with me. All continue to be friends or collaborators and I enjoy tremendously seeing them with their families at meetings and other functions, thriving now as independent researchers themselves. It is my way of paying back the huge debt I owe to the many people that helped, encouraged, and taught me to give to my graduate and medical students, fellows, and all others that I work with, all I can give: my time, advice, guidance, and opportunities.

Finally, it is important to remember that a balanced life is everything. My parents taught me, among so many other things, this need for balance, early on, and introduced me to all that I like and do today; my wife and my kids (that keep supporting my long hours at work and my travelling), my many friends, the arts, sports, the outdoors, and other hobbies (such as collecting, making, and…drinking wine) nurture the mind, body, and my science.