John suggested a project and a pathway: after acquiring the tools of blood cell colony growth, that I should purify a colony-stimulating factor (CSF), a substance that stimulates the proliferation of blood cells in the bone marrow, by joining the laboratory of Dr. Earl Davie, then chair of the department of biochemistry.

In that dual mentoring setting, where protected time for junior faculty was the rule, I gained a great deal, and emerged with a purified blood cell growth factor (GM-CSF), skills in both protein purification (separating one type of protein out from components in the blood) and gene cloning, and "technical courage," the term used by the Nobel laureate Dr. Joe Goldstein to depict the capacity to move one's science however it progresses.

[1][2][3][4][8] In 2002, Kaushansky was appointed as Chair and Helen M. Ranney Professor of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.

Helen Margaret Ranney was the first female president of Association of American Physicians, and her landmark research established one of the earliest links between genetic factors and sickle cell disease.

With 25 academic departments, 21 residency training programs and 27 fellowship training programs at Stony Brook Medicine, and as part of the only academic medical center on Long Island, Kaushansky increased enrollment to help meet a growing need for physicians nationwide and welcomed 124 men and women to the class of 2012 – the largest incoming class ever.

Stony Brook Medicine is also home to a $4 million, 6,000 square-feet Clinical Skills Center, a state-of-the art training center where medical students evaluate and diagnose patients through teaching modules that incorporate the use of actor patients and computerized mannequins that simulate characteristic disease conditions.

[1][2][3][8] Kaushansky's appointment at Stony Brook was lauded by several academicians such as Eric W. Kaler the then provost and vice-president of Brookhaven Affairs at Stony Brook University and Dr. Edward J. Benz, the president of the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and past president of the American Society of Hematology and the American Society for Clinical Investigation.

The lab also runs several projects to understand the physiology of megakaryotic developments and the tools necessary to perform gene therapy for bleeding disorders.

Thrombopoietin is the powerful hormone that the body uses to direct the bone marrow to produce platelets, the disk-like cells that are necessary for blood to clot.

Alexis is a PhD molecular biologist and Joshua is an economist for the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities based in Boston.