Alfred Reszka’s future was intertwined with the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology in ways he never could have predicted when he came to the University of Illinois in the 1980s. Reszka was one of the first graduate students in the new department, and the connections he made in CDB laid the groundwork for his entire career.
CDB was created in 1987, although it was known as the Department of Cell and Structural Biology, or CSB, at the time. Shortly after, in early 1988, Reszka joined Professor Rick Horwitz’s new laboratory, so he says there was a feeling of exhilaration and freshness.
“Rick was warm and welcoming, and there was a lot of excitement around his mission for the department,” recalls Reszka, who completed his PhD in CSB in 1992.
He went on to do his postdoc under a Nobel Prize winner and has so far spent his entire career at the Merck pharmaceutical company. But he credits Horwitz with setting him on this path and teaching him lessons that he carried with him, such as how to generate good testable hypotheses.
“Many scientists believe they have to advocate for their hypotheses,” Reszka says. But Horwitz emphasized to him the importance of doing whatever you can to destroy a hypothesis. “In failing to destroy it, the hypothesis gets to stand.”
Reszka grew up in Northbrook, Illinois, and he originally came to the U of I with the goal of becoming a physician. He entered as a pre-med student in general biology, but the experience of seeing two cadavers convinced him that he wasn’t suited to being a doctor.
“I think I turned green,” Reszka says.
So he switched to microbiology, obtaining his undergraduate degree from U of I in 1985. After spending a year as a lab technician, he began his graduate studies under Manfred Reichmann, working on viruses. But when funding for their research project didn’t come through, Reichmann advised him to switch to Horwitz’s new lab in a new, dynamic department—CSB.
In Horwitz’s lab, Reszka worked on integrins—cell adhesion receptors that have both developmental and cancer implications. As he studied the role of integrins on cell structure, the structure of his career was coming together in unexpected ways.
For example, the department brought Edmond Fischer from the University of Washington to campus to speak about his research, and this contact led directly to Reszka’s postdoctoral work under Fischer. Also, Horwitz sent Reszka to speak at Merck about his integrin research at Illinois, and during this trip he met Gideon Rodan—the researcher who would later hire him at Merck.
Reszka has had a knack for dropping into the midst of exciting, new situations, and that was the case when he started his postdoc under Fischer in August of 1992. Only a couple of months later, Fischer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with his collaborator, Edwin Krebs, a 1940 alumnus of the U of I.
On the morning of the Nobel announcement, Reszka says, “I remember the clock radio going off, with the station set
for NPR. My wife suddenly sat up and said, ‘Alfred, your professor just won the Nobel Prize!’ It was another stunningly exciting time.”
Reszka became Fischer’s last postdoc, which was only fitting because he had been the first student at U of I
to complete a graduate degree under Horwitz.
After his postdoc, Reszka joined Merck to do research on Fosamax, which was the leading treatment for osteoporosis. Fosamax went on to sell about $30 billion over its lifetime, but when Reszka joined Merck in 1997, they didn’t yet know how it worked.
“Most people go to pharma companies with the intent of discovering a new medicine, not to find out how an existing drug worked,” he says.
“But I was the new guy and I thought it was an interesting opportunity, so I said sure I’ll do it.”
One year later, they had identified the enzymes and pathways behind Fosamax.
After 10 years with Merck, Reszka began exploring new opportunities in the company and found that they were looking for someone who had knowledge of basic science and marketing and had experience working with physician groups. His research on Fosamax had given him all of these qualities, so he became executive director and head of Strategic Business Intelligence, working in the bone, respiratory, endocrinology, and immunology areas. Most recently, he also became interim head of Global Competitive Intelligence.
Once again, he says the skills for these jobs can be traced back to his time in CSB working in Rick Horwitz’s lab.
“Rick taught me to look at the larger picture,” he says. “Yes, you’re working on something very specific in a lab, but I learned it plays a role in a much larger picture.
“So Rick trained me to be a good scientist,” he adds, “but he also trained me to be a good businessman.”