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18 WWW.UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЖОВТЕНЬ 2015 THE HISTORY BEHIND ONE PHOTOGRAPH My Friend Theresa Solowij Caryk by Norma Zabriskie Heaton Theresa Solowij Caryk and Norma Zabriskie Heaton with Dr. Marshall Nirenberg in the laboratory at the National Institutes of Health, circa 1964. I first met Theresa Solowij Caryk in July of 1963 when I joined the laboratory of Dr. Marshall Nirenberg at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Theresa had joined the lab six months earlier. We shared a small single lab mod- ule and worked literally side by side, elbow to el- bow for many years. From the very beginning, it was an absolute pleasure to work with Theresa. Her energy and good nature made for a very har- monious and congenial relationship. She tried to teach me Ukrainian, but my flair for languages is minimal and the only phrase I remember is “duzhe dobre.” Our laboratory was deciphering the genetic code and the pace was very intense. Too often an- other lab member would “borrow” a key reagent and when we went to use it we would find it miss- ing. Theresa solved this problem by labeling the bottle in Ukrainian and it never went missing again. Her tortes were famous and a very special treat and we all looked forward to the special occa- sions when she would bring one into the lab. By 1965, Dr. Marshall Nirenberg’s labora- tory had deciphered all the letters of the genetic code and in 1968 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for this work. At a Cosmos Club reception in No- vember of 2009 we were both presented with med- als created by Dr. Nirenberg: “For Contributions to Deciphering the Genetic Code or the Mecha- nism of Protein Synthesis”. Dr. Nirenberg died in January of 2010 and my handwritten genet- ic code charts and all research notebooks and data were donated to the National Library of Medicine. I asked Theresa to join me in looking through our old laboratory notebooks (28 in all) and we were able to identify the original experiments which deciphered the letters of the genetic code. Mrs. Caryk and Mrs. Hea- ton with their old research notebooks at the National Library of Medicine in 2012. We both attended The New York Academy of Sciences symposium “50 Years of the Genetic Code” in New York City in July of 2014 and the March 2015 ceremony at the National Library of Medicine when Dr. Nirenberg’s widow, Dr. Myrna Weissmann, donated his Nobel prize medal to the Library. Theresa is a remarkable woman. She held down a full-time job for 32 years, raised three chil- dren and found time to create beautiful examples of Ukrainian needlework. She has always been very active in various social organizations. She told me she is presently President of UNWLA Branch 78 and for the last 20 years has been President of the Mariyska Druzhyna at the U.N.C.S. of the Holy Family. I know her church is very important to her and she attends mass every Sunday despite living one hour away. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful and good friend in my life. Although we have both retired, we stay in touch and get together several times a year.
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