The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done.
— Jean Piaget
My father taught me that the purpose of life is to relieve the suffering of others and make the world a better place in which to live. He achieved that as an engineer, designing schools and colleges in Michigan. He passed that passion on to me and I hope I have passed it on to my own children.
I spent some thirty years in academic research and the pharmaceutical industry, collaborating with a fantastic group of highly skilled scientists in a closely knit team environment. Working in industry gave me an opportunity to carry out experiments that would not have been possible in many other situation. The work was challenging and rewarding.
In 2012, I was given the opportunity to transfer to Boston or part with the company. Much as I loved my work, my heart was no longer in it. I had become increasingly uncomfortable with “big pharma” and began to doubt the value of the enterprise. What did I want to do? I wanted to make a difference in the world.
This was the hope that I shared with my colleagues in industry. All of us had chosen a career in drug discovery so that they might make a small contribution to finding new drugs to cure disease. Yet, the company, in order to maximize profit, had made a “strategic decision” to close our research site. The decision was purely economic. It was too expensive to maintain a large number of research sites; some needed to close. Our ability to “make a difference” had imploded, not because of any failure of our own, but because our dreams were tied to corporate decisions.
My journey continues, but I have found great pleasure and satisfaction in teaching pre-health science students the basics of how the body functions. That is mostly what this website is about. It is my attempt to help such students prepare to make a difference in the world.
It is never to late to make a change in your life for the better.
Larry R. McLean, Ph.D.
Making a Difference in the World 