Pat Romano

Post date: Apr 25, 2011 12:32:38 AM

Wow, those 40 years went by pretty fast. I look forward to seeing old friends again as it is such a strong reminder of where I have come from and how the past still shapes the present and future. Like all of us I went to college in ’71, dropped out in ’72 looking for an alternative life style. Wound up joining the bricklayers cement finishers union and worked construction for a number of years. Moved to Ohio with a girlfriend in ’76 and managed to put myself through undergraduate school and also get an MS in Zoology. Through a twist of fate got a research scientist position at Harvard Medical School and moved to Boston in 1985. Actually, hooked up with Jim Ringel there and Jimmy put me up for awhile and helped me find a place to live, even though I managed to get his car impounded in the short time I stayed with him. After a few years of breathing the Harvard (I can do anything) air I decided to go back to graduate school. Got a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Wesleyan in 1991, got married, got divorced. After that took a Research Fellowship in a world class lab at the National Institutes of Health, had my fifteen minutes of fame, got married again and lived in the suburban D.C. until 1997. Took a position at a small biotech start up in Princeton, NJ and moved to lovely Lambertville (on the Delaware River) NJ. Had a daughter born in Hunterdon County Hospital in 1999, right down the street from Hunterdon Central High School which I remembered well from my old wrestling days. My daughter Ellie is now 12, have a step son Sylas (35) who is a martial arts master, travels throughout Asia studying and teaching an arcane form of Kung Fu and lives off the land in Northern California, just became a grandfather this week to Sylas’s son Logan. The Princeton biotech went belly-up after a few years and I got a position as an Assistant Professor at Thomas Jefferson University, did that for 5 years then took a position as Director of Preclinical Research at another biotech start-up in Horsham, PA, that went belly-up in 2008 and since then I have been an Associate Professor at Drexel Medical College. I recently founded my own biotech start-up designing serum based diagnostic assays for liver cancer. Have been living on a beautiful hillside in Doylestown PA for these past many years. Through the ying and the yang of it all, the things I enjoy most now are walking in the woods with my family and sitting on my back porch and having a beer with my dogs.