Like many great ideas in science, this one was deceptively simple: Drew University is located in northern New Jersey, home to perhaps the largest concentration of industrial scientists and laboratories in the world. Why not utilize the talents of those scientists when they retire to teach undergraduates about research in the "real world"? The retirees can do additional research and avoid becoming couch potatoes, the students learn not only from academics but from those who have pursued commercial work, and the university gains ties with business. It's win-win-win.

This was the thinking that inspired the creation of the Research Institute for Scientists Emeriti (aka the RISE program), now in its second decade at Drew, a small liberal arts college historically affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

Actually, the motive of the program's initiator was a bit more selfish. According to the program's current director, Ashley Carter, formerly a physicist for Bell Labs, "The original impetus for the program goes back to the mid-seventies. It was stimulated by a chemist who got sick and tired of sitting around watching TV and asked Drew if he could have some office space. The University said yes and it started with a small grant from the Dreyfus Fund. [The chemist] began working with students, they loved the opportunity to engage in original research and the program just took off."

RISE now offers two-year renewable fellowships to 11 retired industrial scientists, providing lab and office space and support. Fellows do not receive stipends - their research is funded by grants, often from former employers. They are expected to work with at least two undergraduates per semester.

In the late seventies, officials at Drew learned that George deStevens, the executive vice president and director of pharmaceutical research for what was then CIBA-Geigy (now Novartis), was planning to retire. DeStevens had discovered what became the two most widely prescribed drugs for controlling blood pressure, and was highly respected. "He was invited to become the first director and he was really instrumental in getting the program off the ground," says Carter.

The program now runs on about $75,000 a year, receiving funding from the Charles A. Dana Foundation, the Pew Memorial Trust, Exxon, Novartis, Merck, and other major corporations and foundations. It is unique, although other universities have expressed interest in replicating it; the University of Connecticut, for example, is currently talking with Drew about setting up a program.

In 1989, RISE won from Merck the prestigious Innovation Award in Undergraduate Science Education. RISE itself offers an award, in collaboration with Novartis, that has also become highly coveted. Several Nobel laureates have been honored - and several awardees, including 1999 winner Günter Blobel, have gone on to win Nobels after receiving the Novartis-Drew Award in Biomedical Research. The awards ceremony brings the honorees to the university for a symposium on a cutting edge topic in bioscience. Students in the program have the opportunity to meet with them and listen to presentations on their research.

RISE fellows themselves are no slouches as scientists, either. The program is highly selective and applicants must have demonstrated "outstanding, proven ability" in their fields. Carter, for example, studied underwater acoustics. The submarine detection system first utilized by the U.S. during the Cold War and made famous in Tom Clancy's mega-bestseller, The Hunt for Red October is based on Carter's work.

Carter commented on the recent Russian submarine disaster, which took over 100 lives. "It's a tremendous tragedy," he said. "I have spent time both on the surface and in submarines trying to understand various acoustic problems. I personally don't think there was a collision - I think there was an explosion in the forward torpedo room. It's hideous to think about - especially having spent time in a forward torpedo room. It's always damp and crowded, claustrophobic." Carter is currently working on applied mathematical physics and has just completed a textbook on thermodynamics.

The life sciences are well represented amongst the RISE fellows; more than half of them work in this area. Specialties include pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, molecular biology, and parasitology.

One researcher, medicinal chemist Bill Houlihan, 70, is studying compounds that could prevent cocaine from causing a high. Typically, these drugs have not been effective because they blocked natural experiences of pleasure - but Houlihan's research is aimed at creating compounds that block cocaine but not endogenous neurotransmitters. "Cocaine acts on a site in [the brain's] dopamine transporter, but the site is not identical to that occupied by dopamine," explains Houlihan. His work will attempt to exploit this fact.

Another RISE fellow is Barbara Petrack, who turned 73 the day she was interviewed. She researched nitric oxide for Novartis, most recently searching for drugs to reduce overproduction of this transmitter chemical, which is believed to be involved with inflammation.

Petrack has been a RISE fellow for three years. One of her current projects is exploring the role of nitric oxide in Alzheimer's disease. "Our experimental hypothesis is that nitric oxide may be overproduced by glial cells [cells which support neurons in the brain] and secreted into neurons, causing their death." Amyloid beta proteins, which make up the brain "plaques" seen in Alzheimer's disease, activate glial cells and may cause them to produce excess nitric oxide. "This is the direction we're exploring," she says. Her hypothesis is supported by evidence that users of anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen are at lower risk of Alzheimer's disease.

"It's absolutely amazing," she says of RISE. "It's good for the retirees, it gives me an opportunity to stay involved in research and to pass what I know on to my students." When Petrack became a scientist, her first job was as a lab assistant because women just couldn't get hired as anything else. "It's changed tremendously," she says, "There are still barriers, but it has improved so much. My experience was better than that [of my mentor] and my student's experience is a lot easier than mine.

"When I started in science, there was also a great deal of prejudice against working for pharmaceutical companies, and my mentors were upset with me for doing it," says Petrack. "But I went to Geigy because I had the chance to work with an outstanding scientist whom I knew. And also, you don't have to worry about getting the best equipment, getting grants - you can just focus totally on the research."

Carmen Drahl, a 20-year-old sophomore at Drew, worked with Petrack this summer and will continue her research with her during her junior year. "RISE was the reason I came to Drew," says Drahl. "We get to do one-on-one research projects as undergraduates and since there are no graduate students, we have the full run of all the facilities. The best resource is the scientists, though."

Drahl is studying an enzyme involved in the activation of CD4 cells in the immune system. Many of her predecessors have coauthored or even authored their first publications in major journals before they have even graduated college. Over 100 students have completed the program and the vast majority have gone on to either graduate school or medical school. "RISE is like a hidden gem," says Drahl.