Last Updated on January 8, 2025 by pg@petergamma.org
Was Charles Weissmann, the most famous Molecular Biologist of Switzerland really a genius, as reported in the following video?
Or was he more precisely a „psychologically noticeable“ genius? Here is the report of Peter Gamma from www.petergamma.org.
It is a report of someone who has a bit more more back-ground knowledge about Charles Weissmann than eventually many news-papers in Switzerland.
For instance, was Weissmann not also the richest Molecular Biologist of Switzerland? Not because he made a lot of money as a Molecular Biologist, but because he was from a rich family? And the money came from his father who was a film distributor? And did this not also have an effect on him?
Since one of the students in the lab of Martin Billeter once said to Peter “does Weissmann not look like an actor”?
Weissmann has a large villa on the Zurich mountain where the actors and the rich people live. It is a huge house on a huge ground. And the newspaper ones have written about this, that Charles Weissmanns house is „very un-Swiss“ as far as size is concerned. And indeed, Charles Weissmann is not originally from Switzerland. He was born in Budapest in 1931 and grew up also in Rio de Janeiro. But although his villa is huge, on videos it looks like as it would be demolished soon.
But as a student, Peter did not know that Weissmann was rich. On the contrary, did Charles Weissmann not often look like if he could not afford a hair dresser or new clothes in the lectures he gave? And if so, was this because he had no money for this?
“I lived in the laboratories”, Weissmann once said to a journalist. And in his laboratory on the Hönggerberg in Zurich, there was no hairdresser and no shop to buy new clothes. Was Charles Weissmann in that respect not „psychologically noticable“? As psychologically noticeable as Peter? Peter who recently was labelled by the Swiss Police like that, because of his ripped jeans. But Peter Gamma is not psychologically noticeable. But what about Charles Weissmann? Peter never noticed that Charles Weissmann wore ripped jeans. He was wearing jeans sometimes, and he did not wear made-to-measure suits. And the looks of Charles Weissmann was really extraordinary.
But should one not expect that the most famous Molecular Biologist of Switzerland Charles Weissmann wears made-to-measure suits, at least some times? For instance when he gives interviews on Swiss TV? But he did not, as you can see in the following interview on Swiss TV:
And the Interviews Charles Weissmann gave on Swiss TV and what he said there where one reason why Peter has left the group of Charles Weissmann and Martin Billeter. He left this group one year before Isidro Ballard killed himself in the buildings of Institute of Moelcular Biology I on the Hönggerberg in Zurich, where Charles Weissmann was Director:
And also a friend from Germany who wanted to become a molecular biologist as Peter was attracted by Charles Weissmann in Switzerland. This friend was also in the United States as a student in a huge laboratory for Molecular Biology. And this friend said to Peter, what molecular biologists in Switzerland do is as if they would make sand play games as compared to what the do in the states. And this friend of Peter from Germany retreated from the discipline of molecular biology as well.
And a final remark: who offered a PhD. Position to a PhD student like Isidro Ballard from South America? Only someone like Martin Billeter, who did not find a suitable candidate in Switzerland who wanted the position? Does this not also say something about how popular Molecular Biology was 30 years ago in Switzerland? And Peter has met also a medical doctor who made after Isidro Ballards death his medical doctor in the lab of Martin Billeter. And can we not also learn something from this information?
30 years ago when Peter Gamma became a brain researcher, he talked to medical doctor student about this topic. And when he told the medical doctor student that we would perform his diploma thesis at the Brain Research Institute of the University of Zurich, the medical doctor student was astonished and asked him:
“You are allowed to do so? But you are a biologist and not a medical doctor. Is Brain Research not only for medical doctors?”
But Peter was allowed to do so, and was very happy at the Brain Research Institute Switzerland when he worked there. And most probably much happier than he would have been as when he would have performed his Diploma Thesis at the Institute of Molecular Biology I of the University of Zurich, supported by Isidro Ballard from South America who later on killed himself.
And as Charles Weissmann once said, a good nose is required to choose a certain project. And did Peter Gamma not have a good nose 30 years ago when he has chosen his research project? It was a research project not the Institute of Molecular Biology 1 of the University of Zurich, but a project at the Brain Research Institute of the University of Zurich. Since has the Institute of Molecular Biology 1 in Zurich not become famous for a PhD student who killed himself there 30 years ago?
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