Passion and Joy When I'm 64

This autobiographical sketch by Dean Jones, Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta USA, was prepared in celebration of his 64th birthday. The book chronicles life as a child of the cold war, a student of the Vietnam War and an adult with the blessings and challenges of family and science. The book is organized into four parts highlighting 32 original poems, 32 favorite personal photographs, 32 scientific papers, and 32 oil paintings. Accompanying notes provide context and motivation. In the first of four parts, “An Egg is a Gamble Encased in a Shell”, he shares poems from youth and young adulthood. These reveal strong influences of contemporary events on development of philosophy of life. His father taught him, “If you cannot see both sides of an argument, you are wearing blinders.” He was functionally blind until 10 years old; vision testing was not routine in small town America. In a second part, “Life’s Reflection is a View of Views”, special people, places and events are captured through the lens of his camera. These symbolize the joys of adult life and passage from student to professor and naturalist to scientist. Family maintained central stage, but central stage was never far from science; interspersed are philosophical milestones in single-frame cinematography. Part 3, “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,” summarizes his favorite scientific papers, mirroring the teaching of his mentor, Professor HS Mason: “Your greatest contribution is made by asking fundamental questions which others are not pursuing.” He describes life as a bulldozer, clearing paths and filling holes in the scientific landscape of redox biology and the molecular logic of life. The final section, “Life is an Unfinished Portrait”, speaks to the joy of discovery beyond science, progression in art to plein air painting, the joy of transforming blank canvas into a passionate memory. This is a story of fulfillment, a story of passion and joy.

This autobiographical sketch by Dean Jones, Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, USA, was prepared in celebration of his 64th birthday. The book chronicles life as a child of the cold war, a student of the Vietnam War and an adult with the blessings and challenges of family life and science. The book is organized into four parts highlighting 32 original poems, 32 of his favorite personal photographs, 32 of his original scientific papers, and 32 original oil paintings. Accompanying notes provide context and motivation. In Part 1, “An Egg is a Gamble Encased in a Shell”, he shares poems written as an inconsistent diary of youth and young adulthood. These reveal strong influences of contemporary events of the cold war, civil rights and the Vietnam War on development of philosophy of life. His father taught him, “If you cannot see both sides of an argument, you are wearing blinders.” He was functionally blind until 10 years old; healthcare was not universal, and there was no routine vision testing in small town America in the 1950’s. These early years had lifelong impact, for better or worse. Part 2, “Life’s Reflection is a View of Views”, presents a selection of special people, places and events that he captured through the lens of his camera. These symbolize the joys of adult life and reflect passage from student to professor and naturalist to scientist. They also reflect transition from grandson to son to father to grandfather. Family maintained central stage, but central stage was never far from science; interspersed are philosophical milestones in single-frame cinematography: peace is unexpected, beauty is timeless, love is eternal, life is fleeting. Part 3, “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,” summarizes 32 of his favorite scientific papers from more than 450 scientific publications. The selection reflects the teaching of his mentor, Professor Howard S Mason: “You make your greatest contribution by asking fundamental questions which others are not pursuing.” He describes the need to be a bulldozer, clearing paths and filling holes in the scientific landscape. As his research prospered in studies of redox biology and the molecular logic of life, he recalls a nightmare concerning oxidative stress research that led to an explosive development of high-throughput chemical profiling for precision medicine and exposome research. He provides insight into the interdependence of students, mentors and colleagues, and the rewards and benefits of trust and collaboration. In his final section on Art, “Life is an Unfinished Portrait”, he speaks to the joy of discovery beyond that in poems, photos and science. In 32 Paintings, he shows his progression from an untrained middle-aged beginner in oils. He studied the subjects of O’Keefe, the brush strokes of Monet, the colors of Van Gogh. Through trial and error, he achieved Matisse’s definition of fine art, “something nice to hang on the wall.” In his notes, he conveys the joy of transforming a blank canvas into a loving memory, as well as the intimidation of plein air painting, exposing one’s level of competence to complete strangers, to better capture impressions of nature. Together, the collection tells a story of fulfillment of a scientist, husband, father and grandfather, as well as academician, poet, photographer and artist. This is a story of passion and joy.

Dean Jones is Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia (USA). He is a biomedical research scientist and educator in redox biology and an active proponent of the nascent effort to sequence the human exposome. He is the Director of the Clinical Biomarkers Laboratory (Department of Medicine) and collaborates widely on applications of clinical metabolomics to human health and disease. Born in Hazard, Kentucky (USA) on September 13, 1949, Jones is a post-World War II baby boomer, third child of Steve and Regina Jones. He grew up in southern Indiana, just north of Louisville, Kentucky, and in Granite City, Illinois, a suburb of St Louis, Missouri. He was valedictorian of Granite City Senior High School in 1967 and received an Elks Club Scholarship, an Association of the U.S. Army Scholarship and an Illinois State Scholarship to attend the University of Illinois, Urbana. He studied chemistry and biochemistry, graduating with honors in 1971. He completed his Ph.D. in medical biochemistry at Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, in 1976, studying the biochemistry of hypoxia under the direction of Professor Howard S. Mason. He was a National Science Foundation Fellow in nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, with Professor James Gaylor from 1976-77. In 1977, he moved to Stockholm, Sweden to study metabolism and function of the antioxidant glutathione with Professor Sten Orrenius at the Karolinska Institute. In 1979, he joined the Department of Biochemistry under the direction of Professor Donald B. McCormick as part of an historic transition and expansion of scholarship at Emory University enabled by a major gift from Robert and George Woodruff. His pioneering research to map intracellular gradients of oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, ATP and pH in mammalian cells provided a foundation for later discovery of kinetic limitations in thiol/disulfide systems. The stable, non-equilibrium reactions of sulfur switches in proteins governs the functional organization of macromolecular networks in cells, elaborated together with Professor Helmut Sies in an article entitled, The Redox Code. The redox code provides central principles for an organism, defined by a genetic code, to organize bioenergetics, metabolism and macromolecular structure to utilize environmental resources and defend against environmental challenges. The redox code complements the genetic code in the molecular logic of life. Current research extends these concepts to practical approaches to understand human exposures and cumulative effects, termed the exposome, and develop understanding of exposure memory systems that impact healthy aging and chronic disease. His research has been supported by the National Institute of Health, Department of Defense, National Science Foundation, American Heart Association, American Institute for Cancer Research, Office of Naval Research, the Woodruff Foundation and the Georgia Research Alliance. In 1984, he received the Albert E Levy award for his research on underlying mechanisms contributing to oxygen gradients in cells. In 1997 he was a recipient of a Nobel fellowship to study apoptosis at the Karolinska Institute. He received the Oxygen Club of California Science and Humanity prize in 2008, the R. Wayne Alexander Excellence in Research Accomplishment Award in 2013, the Society of Toxicology Mechanistic Toxicology Career Achievement Award in 2014 and the Jarrow Health Sciences Prize in 2014. He has authored or co-authored more than 450 scientific papers and holds several patents related to his biomedical research. He is an active member of the Society of Toxicology and the Society for Free Radical Biology & Medicine. He is married and resides in the Atlanta area, enjoying family activities, hiking, birding, photography and plein air painting.