Immunologist and biochemist William Parker, Ph.D., often spends his days with rats. They’re sociable animals, he says, which makes them perfect for experiments that study social behaviors.
Parker, a well-spoken, well-published academic who is famous for being on time with every deadline as well as being part of the research team that discovered the function of the appendix as a harbor for beneficial bacteria, was a professor and scientific researcher at Duke University’s medical school for almost 28 years.
Working with different surgeons over the years, he would examine transplanted tissue to look for immune markers, train undergraduates and medical school students in the scientific method, and teach students how to set up experiments….