DEPARTMENT of PEDIATRICS, DIVISION of HUMAN GENETICS, GROWTH, and 
DEVELOPMENT -- ROGER LADDA, M.D. 
WALDHAUSEN: Today is February 19, 2010, and my guest is Dr. Roger Ladda, Chief of the 
Division of Human Genetics, Growth and Development in the Department of Pediatrics. He is 
also the David S. and Amy S. Goldberg Professor of Genetics and Pediatrics. For the record, I 
want to emphasize that you should feel free to make any comments that you wish. Our 
discussion will be known only to you, me, and the transcriptionist until a transcribed copy is 
approved and released by you in whole or in part. If you wish to have something remain 
confidential until you are dead 10 years, that too can be done, and you will just have to 
indicate so. 
Roger, let's start with your childhood. Where were you born. Where did you grow up? What 
was your family like. 
LADDA: I am a product of Illinois. I grew up in Southern Illinois. A little town called Lebanon, 
Illinois. I went to public grade school and high school. My family background is 
interesting from the point of view in that my father is a second-generation Italian immigrant 
and got started in the construction business after being signed to the Alaska-Canadian Highway during World War II and then started a business, home building, which I more or less became a part of as a summer laborer.  My mother was from a staunch, old-order, German 
background. Monday was washing, Tuesday was ironing and so on as a habit. I am an only 
child. So, I had all of the benefits of all of the largesse that my parents had to offer. 
WALDHAUSEN: Was there anybody that particularly influenced you in your early years other 
than your mother and father? 
LADDA: There were a number of individuals who influenced me through the years. Not sure 
how relevant this is to the ultimate formation of the character, but I was always active in 
sports and that sort of thing. Perhaps, the most influential person in those early years turns 
out to be my wife, Judy, who was a cheerleader, and I was a basketball player, and we started 1 

that relationship. So, we were essentially fused together from early high school up through 
the past 55 years. She had an intense influence on my behavior and my behavior on her. 
One particular instructor in high school, her name was Potter, Edith Potter, not the 
pathologist Edith Potter, but she was a high school teacher. And, I was interested in science, 
and she became particularly interested in me, and over the course of the last three years in 
high school, I did science projects and started doing electron microscopy as a sophomore in 
high school, working at Washington University in St. Louis whenever they would allow me to 
use their instrumentation. And, the long and the short of it, through her guidance, I ended up 
receiving a scholarship for full tuition to Wesleyan University for undergraduate study at the St. Louis Science Fair in 1955.  So, she had an intense influence directing my activity there. Also, I must say that my interest in medicine is based on early experiences with our family doctor in 
Illinois. Dr. Renner, God rest his soul, practiced medicine until he was 98. He died in his 
office. I still remember him sewing up a number of lacerations by simply taking the needle 
and scalpel out of an alcohol sterilization vial, shaking it in the air, blowing on it to dry it off, 
and then doing his work. I was always impressed. There was another family doctor, Dr. 
Carpenter, during the summer, allowed me to work in his office, and before HIPAA 
regulations, my assignment was to provide the hormone and vitamin shots to 
postmenopausal women during one of their afternoon clinics. 
So, I had a wonderful local experience being interested to medicine. 
WALDHAUSEN: How did you get to Wesleyan? 
LADDA: Through the Greater St. Louis Science Fair. They were offering a full tuition, room 
and board scholarship at Wesleyan for the prize for the science fair. 
And, having grown up in Illinois and having respect for Barnes Hospital, the hospital that 
saved my father's life a number of times, and having worked in the pathology laboratory 
there in summers, I thought Washington University would be the appropriate place for me to 
go, but when the prospect of going east, and in actual fact of going east, I realized after I got 
to Wesleyan that I was an experiment. They had rarely taken anybody west of the Hudson 
River at that time, and it was an all-male college. Largely reserved for the children of 
2 

successful families who did not get into Harvard or Yale, they ended up at Wesleyan or 
Amherst. So, I was one of about six individuals. I learned many years later, by the way, they 
all succeeded, so their experiment with natives west of the Hudson was correct. 
WALDHAUSEN: Is Lebanon close to St. Louis? 
LADDA: Yes. Lebanon, Illinois, is 20 miles of east of St. Louis on highway 50, or used to be 
highway 50. 
WALDHAUSEN: Yes, I was familiar with the "iron curtain" between the East and the West. 
What was your major? 
LADDA: The major was biology and chemistry. 
WALDHAUSEN: Had you, by then, decided to go into medicine? 
LADDA: Oh, long before. 
WALDHAUSEN: When did you make that decision. 
LADDA: I think it was from the very beginning. I do not remember ever not thinking about 
going into medicine. 
However, I did have a short experiment with architecture. My father was a contractor, and I 
was something of an artist, so I used to draw his floor plans. The elevations, the front and 
the back and showing the families, and what might be interesting, but after about three or 
four summers in Illinois in August with a temperature of 110 degrees, pouring concrete, it 
seemed to me there was probably a better way. 
WALDHAUSEN: Now, how do you get back to the Midwest then, the University of Chicago? 
LADDA: I was anxious to get back to the Midwest because of my girlfriend and eventual wife. 
I did a few extra courses during Wesleyan, so I finished Wesleyan in three years and applied 
to Washington University, University of Illinois, and University of Chicago. In those days, 
3 

applying to more than one or two medical schools seemed to be excessive compared to the 
current status of applying to as many as 20. I was interviewed at St. Louis 
University by biochemist Edward Doisy. You probably have heard of him. 
WALDHAUSEN: He is a Nobel laureate? 
LADDA: Yes he was. And, I was really taken aback because his interview consisted of asking 
me to go into his laboratory and titrate an acid:base. At the University of Chicago, I was interviewed by the Dean of Students Joseph Ceithaml, He had been there many years. He was a biochemist, and there was something about this gentleman, tall, robust, very bright, and we had a lengthy conversation about research. I had, by that time, some track record doing electron microscopy and also doing genetic studies at Wesleyan with a fellow by the name of Ernst Caspari studying mitochondria, and we got into this discussion about mitochondria, which was of interest to him and it just hit a cord, so, by the time I got back to Wesleyan, I had my acceptance letter from the University of Chicago, and that was all I needed. 
WALDHAUSEN: Then you went to Paris on a ... 
LADDA: it was rather interesting in that I came to University of Chicago after having spent 
several summers working at Washington University doing electron microscopy, and I 
happened to work with a gentleman who was interested in fetal kidney development, and so 
I spent two summers doing electron microscopy on various stages of fetal kidney 
development. So, when I arrived at University of Chicago, a friend of the family, Jean Spencer, from Lebanon, Illinois, happened to be a professor at the University of Chicago and 
knew of my interest and introduced me to Benjamin Spargo who was their pathologist 
interested in renal biopsies, and I just fell into his laboratory, literally, and continued to do 
ultrastructural work on fetal kidneys, as well as looking at some of his clinical biopsies. 
WALDHAUSEN: Now, I think what this means, when you look at your CV, you had a year in 
Paris, and then you came back. 
LADDA: Correct. 
4 

WALDHAUSEN: And then you had two more years of medical school. 
LADDA: The scenario was that the group at the University of Chicago discovered 
erythropoietin. And, Marcel Bessis in Paris was chief of the National Transfusion Center, 
and, at that time, had an electron microscope with probably the best resolution that was 
available at that time, the late 1950s or early 1960s with a resolution that could 
distinguish between micelles of ferritin. Leon Jacobson was dean and chair of 
hematology/oncology and looking for someone to work with them to identify the stem cell or 
erythrocytes and Marcelle Bessis was Mr. l’ilot erytbroblastique which is simply erythroblastic  
island. Dr. Bessis had published articles indicating that erythrocytosis occurred by stem cells coming together around a large mother cell and then they would simply feed on the mother cell and have the ferritin molecules transported to the various cells, and then we would see the 
sequential differentiation. And, that was all well and good. So, Jacobson and his group had 
already developed a polycythemic mouse model to look at how erythropoietin would 
stimulate erythrocytes, and so, to make a long story short, they thought I would be a 
reasonable person to do this particular research to identify the stem cell. It turned out, and 
this was a wonderful, wonderful experience for me, which, unfortunately I have learned over 
and over again in my scientific career that you have to be very cautious of definitive 
observations. It so happened that the so-called l’ilot erytbroblastique described by Dr. Bessis was an observation in a certain form of leukemia found in guinea pigs. And, of course, my 
model was in the mouse. So, I went to France for a year with my wife and our first 
daughter, Margo, and had a marvelous year. It was more of a cultural year than it was, in 
retrospect, a scientific success. But, the experience of success and disappointment during 
that year was really a great learning experience. Then, I returned to Chicago to complete the clinical training and having worked with Ben Spargo and being impressed with just a brilliant 
pathologist, I thought pathology probably would be an appropriate place for me to find some 
form of clinical activity and research, and, of course, at that time, I still had the mental 
picture that the pathologist was the premiere physician providing the answers for all of the 
challenges that the clinician encountered. 
5 

WALDHAUSEN: Well, that was somewhat the philosophy at that time. 
LADDA: Yes, when I came back to work with Ben Spargo, he was working in a rat model for 
lead poisoning, and that was very popular during that time. So, I moved into that area and 
had considered doing a Ph.D. In fact, I had started to work for the Ph.D. and the language 
requirement for a Ph.D. was French, naturally. And, after graduation, I elected to stay at the 
University of Chicago to do a pathology fellowship, but, I must tell you after my 60th autopsy 
on patients with myocardial infarctions, I said I think this is not for me. So much in one's career 
can be just casual happenstance, I guess. It so happened, at that time, an internist at the University of Chicago, John Arnold, and who was an adult nephrologist, and who also worked with Alf Alving, someone you may recall who was instrumental in malaria research 
during World War II, and was at the University of Chicago. Arnold received a huge, at that 
point, multi-million dollar award from the Army to establish a clinical research program at the University of Missouri Kansas City to establish a clinical unit at the Jackson County Jail in Kansas City, Missouri, to study malaria infections in prison or volunteers.  At that time, there was considerable concern regarding unusual development of malaria strains resistant to the standard antimalarials.  The Army wanted to establish clinical investigations to use various new antimalarial combinations on the so-called resistant strains particularly falciparum malaria.  Dr. Arnold wanted someone with experience in the electron microscopy to study the structure of the parasites isolated from the prison or volunteers to study the structural changes introduced in the parasites by the antimalarials.  And I was fascinated by malaria as a developmental biologist in regard to the cell cycle of the malaria parasite, the differentiation and the 
de-differentiation. So, I looked upon this experience as an opportunity to establish a laboratory and carried out original independent research.  At this time, I was also leaning toward pediatrics as a specialty and had the vision of carrying out research and also simultaneously pursuing residency training in pediatrics.  The laboratory was part of the newly formed University of Missouri School of Medicine in Kansas City, and the laboratory was dedicated as the Harry S. Truman Institute. I had the opportunity to order my own electron microscope exactly to my own specifications, organize the laboratory and run it. For about two-and-one-half years, it was a great learning experience.  But ultimately, the opportunity for additional clinical training was limited and I had to move on.   
WALDHAUSEN: Well, how did pediatrics sneak into this? 
LADDA: Developmental differentiation. You know, fetal kidneys, malaria parasite cycle. 
Developmental biology in the broadest sense.  Over the years, I worked with a snail, Iyanassa 
obsoleta, to study the lifecycle. I guess I dabbled in a lot of different organisms all related to embryology.
WALDHAUSEN: So, then, you went off back to Central US? 
LADDA: I went back to Kansas City, and it was a wonderful opportunity. We had three 
children while I was at the University of Chicago. Then, we had two extras come along in 
Kansas City, and the laboratory research was a learning experience, but, it became apparent 
to me not having finished a residency, that I was nothing more than a lab rat at that point and 
really needed to do something very dramatic soon. The idea that I was going to be able to do 
research and complete a residency either as part of the University of Missouri program or 
part of the University of Kansas program in Kansas City, just was not materializing. And, so, I 
had become familiar with the group in pathology at the University of Washington. They were 
doing some excellent ultrastructural work on a number of systems. And, for some reason, it 
just struck me that this seemed to be the place that I ought to go. So, I entered the matching 
system.  I had a heart-to-heart discussion with my chief in Kansas City, Dr. Arnold, and indicated my concern regarding my limited progress toward moving forward with residency training because of the laboratory commands.  And, with no apparent immediate resolution, I elected to look for an appropriate clinical training opportunity.  At that time, in Kansas City, I was part of the clinical malaria research program and in order to have access to the patient's, I was appointed a  
deputy sheriff, Jackson County,for that period of time.  This experience, however, proved invaluable a few years later when I was drafted into the Army. 
And, so, I was fortunate to be selected to the pediatric residency program at the University of Washington, Seattle, the Children's Orthopedic Hospital.  There I found several faculty members interested in developmental biology.  Dr. Thomas Shepard, pediatrician was compiling reports on the effects of agents on the embryo defining embryological toxicology .  Dr. David Shurtleff was interested in neural tube defects.  I flew out to Seattle and interviewed and loved the Children's Hospital and the University there. It seemed like an excellent spot. 
WALDHAUSEN: Wasn't the Children's Hospital at that time sort of a ... 
LADDA: It was the Children's Orthopedic Hospital. 
WALDHAUSEN: Yeah, it was run by a bunch of ladies. 
LADDA: Well, not really. It was run by Dr. Doctor. The chief was Dr. Doctor, and a wonderful 
Gentleman.  It was part of the Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington program, and it was really  outstanding. As it turns out, it was one of the outstanding programs.
 WALDHAUSEN: Wasn't there still an awful lot of private practice? 
LADDA: Yes. Half and half. We had marvelous combination of academicians. Tim Oliver. 
You may remember Tim Oliver, the neonatologist, was a senior faculty member when I was 
there. Then, he became Chair of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh. So I was there for a year doing the first year of pediatrics and I got interested in some yeast work, developmental work in yeast, and so I was going to stay on there to develop a career when Uncle Sam felt that my 
services were needed elsewhere, and so I was drafted, and because I had been in malaria 
research before, I was told I was probably eligible for a prime assignment in research and 
development (R&D), and it turns out that I was assigned an excellent position at Walter Reed 
Hospital. Electron microscopy of malaria parasites. Again, a developmental program, and so 
wonderful. I signed up and the day I arrived at Ft. Sam, the General called us in and said, well 
we had a change in plans. We need physicians in rice paddies in Vietnam, but if you sign up 
for an extra year, you will get an original assignment. 
So, having a wife and five children and not having much of a life insurance policy, 
I thought it would probably be in my family’s best for me to interest to sign up for an extra year. So, we went to Washington for 18 months and then to Walter Reed for three years.  The Walter Reid experience ultimately was the most viable research experience I have had to this point.  A truly exquisite learning experience.  The malaria research plan to a number of publications and probably the most significant observation there was, for the first time, by electron microscopy, we described the penetration meroziotes into red cells and described entire sequence.. But, more importantly, I met several other colleagues at Walter Reed and the NIH and initiated collaboration with colleagues at the NIH. I collaborated also at Georgetown with a gentleman who was nuclear transfer in frog eggs. I also became familiar with a colleague who had a new product from a fungus that caused cells to divide a little bit oddly so that we could enucleate large populations of 
cells and infuse other nuclei from other cells back to the original cytoplasm and create 
chimeras which led to a collaboration with a group at the NIH where we looked at C5 
deficient mice, and we cured them for about 30 days until they reacted to the response. So, 
that three-year period was an extraordinary learning period. It was a very productive period scientifically, and it was also the period in which I met Dr. Jeffrey Maisels. Jeff was in the 
Army at that time. 
WA/DHAUSEN: What year are you talking about now? 
LADDA: This was between 1967 and 1970. Jeff had been with Nick Nelson at the Boston 
Children's Hospital prior to going into the Army and, in that interim. Nick made chair of 
Pediatrics (Hershey). So, when Jeff's time was up in the Army, he came directly to Hershey. 
So, that was an important contact at that point because subsequently I had planned to go 
back to Seattle to complete my training. That did not quite work out, and strange things 
happen. You end up going to a place you hadn't thought you would end up going to. I ended 
up at Children's Hospital in Boston. And, after completing the training there at Mass General 
in genetics, low and behold, I had a call from my old colleague, Jeff Maisels. He said how are 
things going? That led to the contact and eventual visit to Hershey. 
WALDHAUSEN: You were still pretty young then. 
LADDA: This was 1973. And, I drove to the medical center, I drove from Boston to Hershey, 
to see the beautiful countryside, without my family, just drove down in a day and drove into 
the parking lot, which is now the Cancer Center, and I think the seventh floor was still being 
constructed. I gave my introductory lecture in a library which eventually became Nick's office 
which eventually became my office. 
WALDHAUSEN: What was your impression of Hershey? 
LADDA: I was impressed from the very beginning. First of all, I had high regard for Jeff 
Maisels. He was a wonderful, outgoing friendly person, and of course, I was particularly 
impressed by his ability to recognize the talent I had to offer. (Laughing.) But, I think what 
struck me was the fact that everyone in the room, that included essentially first-generation 
faculty, all of whom were Boston transplants. You had Chet Berlin, Jeff Maisels, and Howard Kulin. And the stories, of course, you remember Nick and his stories, and he repeated them sufficiently often that after about 10 or 15 years, I could even repeat most of them. But the atmosphere was just one of warmth, concern, and expectation. There were no 
limitations. You know, we had all of this space, and it was exactly what I was looking for, 
because I had been around the block several times by that time. I was no fresh resident out 
of training. I had spent about seven years doing research or traveling in different medical 
centers, and my goal really was to work in an atmosphere where I had an opportunity to be 
independent, creative, and if we succeeded, we succeeded because of our own efforts, if we 
did not, it was our fault. That was a grand opportunity to continue the experiment. 
WALDHAUSEN: What were your goals when you came? 
LADDA: Well, the goal was to survive. At least the first couple of years, and get an NIH grant. 
And, fortunately, I had superb support from Nick (Nelson, founding chair of Pediatrics) and all 
of the other folks with freedom to do what I wanted to do. First of all, we established the 
cytogenetics laboratory. There had been a small chromosomal laboratory in pathology 
up until the time I came. But, once I arrived, everybody was so delighted, I was just given free reign to establish the cytogenetics laboratory. So, we had the laboratory which was part of pediatrics, no longer pathology, and then I became a clinician and ward attending, and I had my research interests which, by the time, had evolved into growth factors. I brought a lot of information and experience back here from my work in Boston, and within a matter of about three months with secretarial help and guidance from another fellow who was here, you may remember, Wayne Bardin? 
WALDHAUSEN: Yes. 
LADDA: Wayne was just an extraordinary help to me in conceptualizing what I wanted to do 
and criticizing my initial NIH grant application.  And he probably was as surprised as I was 
that I was awarded the several grants the first time around, but that was the way we got started. 
WALDHAUSEN: He was very able. Well, now that you look back on it, were you able to 
achieve most o fthe things you wanted to do? 
LADDA: In one way or another. I can look back and say what we achieved, I think pretty 
much was achieved on the basis of our own hard work, and the challenges and regrets, if there are any, and there are a few, certainly, rest on no one else's shoulders but my own. So, 
we had the opportunity to be creative. Nick (Nelson) provided a fantastic atmosphere of 
openness, and by openness, I mean there were many times we had some rather vigorous 
discussions. 
WALDHAUSEN: What do you consider your most important contributions while here at 
Hershey? 
LADDA: I think the thing that I am most pleased with is the evolution of the clinical service. The feed back we got from colleagues, not just locally, but nationally, and even our contacts 
internationally and the feeling that there has just been constant growth. No matter how 
much I have spent time in the laboratory that fundamental drive to be a clinician can never 
be extinguished. It can never be suppressed. So, now, I am really back where I started. I am 
essentially a full-time clinician and enjoying it absolutely. 
WALDHAUSEN: When one sort of looks at the place now, and when I came in 1969, the 
greatest achievement is, we are still here, we are growing, we have done it. We are providing 
services. 
LADDA: The achievement, I do not look upon achievement as an individual thing in this 
environment. Because it really has been a group activity. 
We have all had our criticisms of administrations, about the evolution of the institution. 
The fact of the matter is, it did not take very many years for the institution to become known nationally and internationally beyond any individual. I think the grandeur of the institution is that it has achieved a national and international reputation. The training programs are as good if not better than many I have experienced myself, and will continue to grow, and it just feeds 
upon itself. 
WALDHAUSEN: Probably, the only dean you dealt with is Prystowsky, right? 
11 

LADDA: Yes. I have just wonderful stories about Prystowsky. Which, obviously would have 
to be edited and restated several times. 
WALDHAUSEN: You did not know Harrell {founding Dean) at all, did you? 
LADDA: No, I did not, but I knew Prystowsky, his successor. 
WALDHAUSEN: If you came here in 1973, that was the end of my one-year term. 
LADDA: Deanship? Well, I did not arrive until July 1974. 
WALDHAUSEN: Okay, I was no longer Dean then. 
LADDA: I had very little to do with the Dean. I mean, I did not even know what a Dean was 
or really did not care, I was too busy. 
WALDHAUSEN: How about the other chairs here? Do you want to say stories about Harry 
(Prystowsky)? 
LADDA: Well, I do not think they are publishable. I do remember, though, Harry was a chain- 
smoker, as was Nick. You remember. And, those were the days, I remember walking into 
Nick Nelson's office several times, I could not even see him. It was just absolutely ... 
WALDHAUSEN: Nick was a smoker. 
LADDA: Nick was a smoker. And, can you imagine? In any event, I remember trying to be 
cute once with Prystowsky, and he was coughing and talking about his bad habit of smoking, 
and we were in, I think Nick was there, and I was there, and a couple of other people were 
there, and Prystowsky reaches for a cigarette and I am within arm's reach, and I reach over 
and grab his arm, you know, and I say, I don't think you should be doing that. He looked at 
me, and he said, you never shall ever touch a Dean again. 
His affection, or I should say his affliction, was always expressed in finding some critical 
comment to make. 
WALDHAUSEN: Did you have anything to do with hospital administration? 
12 

LADDA: Not a great deal. Not a great deal. I did not have a great deal of affection for the 
hospital administration, but we did not have a lot to do with them. I did not know any of 
these people. I knew Peterson (Hospital Administrator), but in terms of the chairs, there are 
several people who stand out. Of course, Elliot Vessel (founding chair of Pharmacology) was 
a tremendous help early on in organizing. He had organized the initial genetics program for 
the medical students, and he deferred that to me soon after my arrival here, and has been a 
huge support throughout my career. Fred Rapp (founding chair of Microbiology) was also an 
extraordinary help. He encouraged the research. He provided supplies when needed. I also 
had considerable interaction with Gene Davidson (founding chair of Biological Chemistry). 
He was always a very interesting personality, humor, outstanding scientist. Curiously 
enough, Bryce Munger (founding chair of Anatomy) and I have quite a history. Bryce was a 
medical student at Washington University when I was a high school student doing electron 
microscopy. 
So, I had known of him, and he was the fair-haired boy at Washington University during those 
days. He then went to University of Chicago for a while. But, anyway when I arrived on the 
scene, and I saw him, it was just like returning to the good old days. AI Vastyan (founding 
chair of Humanities) and I had many, many interesting discussions from a philosophical point 
of view on the genetic issues. Well, he invited a number of times to join in a lecture program. 
Max Lang (founding chair of Comparative Medicine) was an incredible support, not only from 
the point of view of assisting with animal experimentation, but he reviewed a number of my 
grant applications. He always had very constructive comments. In fact, the whole group, it 
was one large family in general. I knew Tom Leaman (founding chair of Family & Community 
Medicine), not so much professionally, but certainly he and his group referred patients to me. 
And, of course, Dr. Naeye {founding chair of Pathology)was instrumental in supporting our 
activities in the laboratory. We collaborated with Tony Kales (founding chair of Psychiatry) 
and a number of his people in genetic studies of a number of psychiatric conditions. And, of 
course, my chairman, Nick Nelson, remains a statuesque personality. Other colleagues, just 
to mention a few, other than Jeff Maisels who is a primary reason why I ended up coming 
13 

here, was an extraordinary support throughout my career. Chet Berlin has always been there 
for me in terms of clinical support and a number of genetic studies. He has a keen interest in 
metabolic diseases and been responsible for the PKU clinic here through the years and 
offered to have me participate with him in that clinic from time to time in the early years, and 
there were so many others. 
WALDHAUSEN: Tell me about the field of genetics and development now, is it changing? 
LADDA: Changing as we speak. 
WALDHAUSEN: In what direction? 
LADDA: We are just discovering more and more bases for congenital malformations, 
causation of cancer, it goes on and on. We are, for better or worse, nothing more than the 
expression of our genome. I was in high school when DNA was discovered. And, when the 
helix was discovered. And, in fact, in 1953 and 1954, the first legitimate human karyotype 
was published. And, up to that point, the number of chromosomes in the human genome 
was considered to be 48 because they just could not spread the chromosomes we" enough to 
count them. So, I was in a biology class, this would have been my sophomore year, and I had 
been reading the literature, and I was aware of the new information. We had an 
examination. And one of the questions was what is the number of the chromosomes in the 
human genome, and the "correct" answer to the question was 48. I told Dr. Potter, this is not 
correct. 
That sort of started our interesting relationship. Then, not being involved in cytogenetics for 
quite some time until my fellowship, we were still looking at these little black stick figures, 
which you remember up through the late 1960s to early 1970s when banding came into play, 
and so when I was in a fellowship, we could not only distinguish chromosomes by size and 
the place of some of the centromere, but also found each one had stripes, so we could tell 
which stripes were deleted, which were duplicated, and so we started getting better and 
better techniques to stretch it more and more and more, and we had more and more stripes 
to identify. So, we could be more precise in what is not missing and or what is duplicated. 
14 

Then, in the late 1980s/early 1990s with the genome project and with various types of 
cloning methodologies, one could literally label different parts different genetic sequences 
and, using fluorescent microscopy, identify where they were binding to the DNA; whether 
they bound or whether they did not bind. So, we were now at a molecular level in looking at 
defects, and then 1995 to 1999, this expanded to the point where we were looking at the 
telomeres, and you remember, our telomeres are getting shorter by the day and that limits 
our lifespan. And, it also causes congenital malformations, and so, we went from being able 
to identify numerical chromosomal abnormalities, Down syndrome, trisomy 21, looking at 
rearrangements like 5p-, 4p-, other deletions to getting down to the molecular level, where 
you would never detect it at the chromosomal level, but you are looking at it at the DNA 
level, and now, currently, we are into the microarray level where we are really looking at 
changes within mega bases or even kilobases, and so we are finding now, in fact, in a recent 
clinic, I received a report, well we have a deletion of this particular chromosome, we are not 
sure what it means, but it is so big, it must mean something. There are no other cases in the 
literature describing it. Oh and by the way, we found six other either copy variations, either 
too much or too little of unknown significance. 
WALDHAUSEN: Are any of your children going into medicine? 
LADDA: No. I think they learned early on, father is never here. He is always in the 
laboratory and all of the kids were very active athletically, and I think they had a natural 
tendency to look at the world at large. I have two sons in business. One is in very complex 
insurance and the other is in hedge funds. We have two daughters, who are in academia.  Our oldest daughter, Margo, is in special education, Master's 
Degree, and then our second daughter, who as one of her advisors in the Hershey High School, 
suggested maybe she should go to trade school or something like that and would probably 
just never have a chance to succeed, has been the chairperson and professor at 
Manhattan College for the last 10 years and just recently received an education award at Manhattan College by faculty and students. So, they are all very healthy. 
Our children are healthy and wise and enjoying life.  And our 7 grandchildren are succeeding and moving on with higher education.  
15 

WALDHAUSEN: You have anything further you want to add? 
LADDA: No, I often tell students that if they are going into pediatrics, and they have not have 
had an opportunity to train at least at some point in a freestanding Children's Hospital such as 
Children's Hospital in Boston, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or anyone of a 
number of others, then they have not lived. Having said that, I then tell them, but if you are 
really looking for quality pediatric training program, the program at Hershey Medical Center 
will be as good as any. 
16