The contents of the program for a symposium titled "Exploring Genes to Genomes" would have excited any molecular biology enthusiast. The nine lectures had topics like "Oncogenic Collaborations" and "Glyceroneogenesis Revisited."
But the conference was also a bittersweet celebration of President Tilghman's contributions to biological research and teaching.
This week, Tilghman closed her laboratory and began moving the belongings to her office in Nassau Hall.
The symposium was followed by a dinner and roast at Prospect House. The reunion honoring Tilghman's scientific legacy drew current and former students, colleagues and mentors.
"This is wonderful," Tilghman said with a wide smile and teary eyes as friends flocked to congratulate her. "This is the biggest family reunion. This is the best present anyone could have given me."
All but three people who ever worked in her lab attended the symposium, she said.
Jim Millonig GS '94, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who studied under Tilghman during his graduate years at Princeton, said he did not fully appreciate Tilghman's "greatness as a mentor until after she left."
Millonig pointed to several elements that contributed to Tilghman's talent as a teacher and adviser.
"She was so concise and clear," he said. "You were hard pressed to leave the room without a clear sense of what you had to do."
Millonig said "everyone in her lab loved science and loved talking about science," leading to a free exchange of ideas "not common to all labs."
Tilghman's love of and enthusiasm for the material generated camaraderie, which made working in her lab a positive and unique experience, he said.
Friend and colleague Marisa Bartolomei also praised Tilghman as she began the lectures Friday morning.
"If we were to gather together all of the lives she's truly impacted, we'd have to go to the Meadowlands," she said.
Bartolomei thanked the packed audience in Lewis Thomas Laboratory 003 for traveling from near and far to celebrate Tilghman's "meteoric rise to the head of Princeton."
But Bartolomei spoke with sadness at the departure of a major contributor to biology.
"I've got the message," Tilghman exclaimed, interrupting Barto-lomei's address and attesting to her own succinct nature.
Richard Hanson from Case Western University spoke first about Tilghman as a student at Temple University.
"She was a superb student just like she is now," he said. "Intelligence. Imagination. Char-isma. These are qualities that have grown and matured. It was predictable that she'd be a star, but not that she'd be president of Princeton."
When Hanson completed his lecture on glucose production and opened the floor to comments, Tilghman threw her hand in the air to ask the first question. "Why?" she asked. "Why the redundancy [in the production]?"
Although Tilghman has closed her lab, it seems her quest for answers and knowledge will always continue.
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