Vallee Voices

An Oral History of The Vallee Foundation

Navigation Menu

Welcome to Vallee Voices: Oral History and Timeline

for The Bert L & N Kuggie Vallee Foundation

Oral History

Timeline

1919

  Bert Lester (Blumenthal) Vallee was born in Germany on June 1. He grew up in Luxembourg.

1926

Natalie (Kuggie) Kugris was born in Girardville, PA

1938

With a BSC from the University of Bern, Bert Vallee moved to the US as the first and only fellow of the International Student Service of the League of Nations.

1943

Bert earned his MD from NYU College of Medicine and began work at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he became interested in the...

1943

        Kuggie moved to Boston to attend Boston University. She earned her BS and EdM in Biology from Boston University while working as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the...

1948

  Bert was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship to study emission arc spectroscopy in the world-famous spectroscopy laboratory affiliated with the physics,...

1952

      Kuggie earned her EdD from Boston University and subsequently became Professor of Biology at Lesley College where she remained for 27 years.

1954

        Bert established the Biophysics Research Laboratory at Harvard Medical School and the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. This laboratory became the locus of Bert’s...

1956

Bert named Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

1957

Bert discovered the unique protein metallothionein, a low-molecular weight cysteine-rich protein. The protein binds zinc atoms very tightly and has been implicated in the...

1965

Bert became the Paul C Cabot Professor of Biological Chemistry at Harvard Medical School.

1974

Harvard and Monsanto embarked on a radical departure from conventional academic research by entering into a joint venture catalyzed by Bert and Monsanto Vice-President, Monte...

1980

Bert established the Endowment for Research in Human Biology at Harvard with income from the Bronfman Foundation to fund research in alcohol metabolism.

1991

Kuggie became Professor of Biology, Emeritus, at Lesley College and subsequently was appointed Lecturer on Biology in the Center for Biochemical and Biophysical Sciences and...

1992

  Hans Jornvall (Karolinska Institutet) brought his whole lab to visit Bert’s lab.    

1996

Bert and Kuggie established The Bert L & N Kuggie Vallee Foundation Inc to promote a collegial community of international scientists, to enhance scientific collaboration and...

1997

In the spring, Clarence ‘Bud’ Ryan, a leader in the field of innate immune response in plants at Washington State University, had, in his words, “the tremendous honor and...

1998

Edmond H Fischer (University of Washington) had a “most rewarding experience” in Bert’s lab where the three main themes under investigation (metallothionein and Zn2+ metabolism;...

1998

The Vallee Foundation’s first Symposium, held in Boston in May, brought together 18 scientists, both VVPs and others, to celebrate “Forty Years of...

1999

From now on, not all VVPs came to Bert’s Lab. The Vallee Foundation began to send VVPs further afield: Earl Davie, a biochemist studying blood proteins involved in coagulation...

2000

Wade Harper (Harvard Medical School) spent a month in the lab of Dame Louise Johnson at Oxford. “How very rare it is for scientists to be able to spend several weeks fully away...

2001

Dame Louise Johnson, a leading molecular biologist and protein crystallographer at the University of Oxford, and Cheng-Wen Wu, who was doing pioneering work on the four-step...

2002

Kuggie retired from Harvard University.

2002

Fourteen Vallee Visiting Professors and members of Bert Vallee’s lab met in Annecy in the spring of 2002 at the second Vallee Meeting to report on their research.

2003

Long-standing collaborations were furthered and expanded when Gerard Canters (Leiden University) spent his VVP sabbatical in Allen Hill’s lab at Oxford. “The excellent scientific...

2004

Malcolm Green (University of Oxford) was provided with a much-needed opportunity to think about his future research program during his month-long VVP sabbatical in Jeremy...

2004

In addition to providing an opportunity for formal and informal science reports from several VVPs, the 2004 meeting, held in Boston, was devoted to two themes: “Molecular...

2005

Hans Jörnvall (Karolinska Institutet), who had known and collaborated with Bert since the 1970s, came back to Bert’s lab for his VVP sabbatical. Douglas Rees (California...

2006

Lewis Cantley, who was then at Harvard Medical School, took the closest he had come to a sabbatical experience in Louise Johnson’s lab at the University of Oxford. “Being...

2006

The 2006 Vallee Summer Symposium convened 15 VVPs to Endicott House in Dedham to talk about their work.  Topics included peptide signals for the innate immune response in plants...

2007

Bert and Kuggie Vallee loved Montana.  Both were keen horse riders and relished the outdoors.  The wide-open spaces surrounding the 320 Guest Ranch in Big Sky provided a...

2008

Jesper Haeggström (Karolinska Institutet) spent his VVP sabbatical in the lab of Charles Serhan lab at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital. “One facet of my visit that was...

2009

Peter Howley (Harvard Medical School) spent two weeks in Oxford thanks to Dame Louise Johnson and Allen Hill and two weeks hosted by Moshe Yaniv at the Institut Pasteur. “It...

2009

The 2009 Summer Symposium, again held in Dedham, provided an opportunity for 16 VVPs and other scholars and scientists to talk about their work as well as explore The Future for...

2010

In May, 2010, Torsten Wiesel came back to Harvard to renew contact with the Department of Neurobiology, where he had previously been a member for twenty years. “My experience as...

2010

Bert Lester Vallee died on May 7.   S James Adelstein (Paul C Cabot Distinguished Professor of Medical Biophysics, Harvard Medical School) became President of the Vallee...

2010

Bert Vallee had planned that the 2010 Summer Meeting would take place in Iceland, but the location was quickly moved to Boston when it became clear that his health was...

2011

Natalie Kugris (Kuggie) Vallee died on November 23.

2012

Stephen Benkovic (Penn State) collaborated with colleagues in the Bensimon Lab at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, to understand the workings of molecular machines and in...

2012

The 2012 Summer Symposium was held in Iceland on the theme of Molecular Machines.

2013

Naama Barkai (Weizmann Institute of Science) had three hosts in Boston during the summer: Andrew Murray at Harvard’s Center for Systems Biology in Cambridge, Aviv Regev at the...

2013

The first Vallee Lindau Fellows were appointed to attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting: Miri Krupkin (Weizmann Institute of Sciences) Fernanda Duarte (Uppsala University)...

2013

The first Young Investigator Awardees were appointed. Kirsty Spalding (Karolinska Institutet): Adipose tissue mass regulation in lean and obese individuals. David Tobin (Duke...

2014

Four more Vallee Young Investigator Awards were given to: Sandeep Robert Datta, MD, PhD, Harvard Medical School, is working on the development and function of neural circuits....

2014

Ron Vale (University of California, San Francisco) spent a month at the Curie Institute in Paris, hosted by Genevieve Almouzni. “I chose the Curie Institut in Paris because...

2014

The first Bert and Natalie Vallee Award in Biomedical Science was awarded to Michael Gottesman (National Cancer Institute) at the annual meeting of the ASBMB

2014

The second group of Vallee Lindau Fellows attended the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting: Renata Gomes (Kings College London) Alice Matimba (University of Zimbabwe) Maria Molina...

2014

The 2014 Summer Symposium was held in Boston on the topic of Protein Homeostasis, Metabolism, and Cancer.

2015

Bonnie Bassler (Princeton University) spent her VVP sabbatical in Arturo Zychlinsky’s lab at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin): “I’m home from my Vallee...

2015

  The third round of Vallee Young Investigators was appointed: Martin Jinek (University of Zurich): Enhancing the capabilities of CRISPR-Cas9 RNA-guided genome editing....

2015

David Eisenberg, Paul Boyer Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UCLA and an HHMI Investigator, is the second winner of the American Society for Biochemistry and...

2015

Peter M Howley, PhD, Shattuck Professor of Pathological Anatomy and Professor of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School, was elected President of the Vallee...

2015

Six Vallee Lindau Fellows attended the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting this year: Joanne Fothergill (University of Liverpool) Katie Harron PhD (University College London)...

2015

The 2015 Summer Meeting focused on the work being done by a handful of Vallee Young Investigators: David Tobin (Duke University Medical Center); Feng Zhang (McGovern Institute,...

2016

Five internationally recognized leaders in biomedical research were named the 2016 Vallee Visiting Professors. Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD, (Director, Department of Regulation in...

2016

The 2016 Summer Symposium is a multi-disciplinary meeting taking place in Rapallo, Italy. Showcasing work by selected Vallee Visiting Professors and Young Investigators, the...

2016

Nine senior scientists took their Vallee Visiting Professor sabbaticals this year: Karen Vousden (Chief Scientist, Cancer Research, UK) spent a month at Weil Cornell Medicine’s...

2016

Bonnie Bassler (Squibb Professor of Molecular Biology, Princeton University) gave a lively talk on the molecular mechanisms that bacteria use for intercellular communication as...

2017

  Five Vallee Visiting Professors were appointed: Kay Davies, DPhil, FMedSci, FRCP (hon), FRCPath, CBE, DBE, FRS (Dr Lee’s Professor of Anatomy at the University of Oxford);...

2017

Five early career scientists were appointed Vallee Scholars: Viviana Gradinaru, PhD, Assistant Professor, The California Institute of Technology; Shalev Itzkovitz, PhD, Senior...

2017

Carla Shatz (Sapp Family Provostial Professor of Biology and Neurobiology and the David Starr Jordan Director of Stanford Bio-X) spent her VVP sabbatical at Columbia University’s...

2017

The 2017 Vallee Summer Meeting was devoted to the Vallee Scholars, the younger generation of basic biomedical researchers supported by the Bert L & N Kuggie Vallee...

2018

Geraldine Seydoux (Huntington Sheldon Professor in Medical Discovery and Vice Dean for Basic Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and HHMI Investigator)...

2018

Elena Conti, PhD (Director of the Department of Structural Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Munich) and Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, PhD (Group Leader,...

2018

The 2018 Vallee Foundation Summer Symposium was held in Dublin June 15-18, 2018.  The Symposium, entitled “Imaging in Cell Biology and Neuroscience,”  brought together an...

2018

Five more Vallee Scholars are appointed: Tanmay Bharat, PhD (Group leader, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford); Mark T Harnett, PhD (Assistant Professor,...

2018

F Ulrich Hartl, (Director, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried) took his Vallee Visiting Professorship sabbatical at Stanford University in September/October, where...

2019

Four new VVPs were appointed: Wolfgang Baumeister, PhD (Director & Scientific Member, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried and Honorary Professor, Technical...