A long journey to the discovery of nuclear receptor coactivator existence, physiology, pathology, and therapy

My early life began with a wonderful set of parents in a poor section of Pittsburgh. I was educated in local Catholic schools until I entered the University of Pittsburgh on scholarship as a major in psychology and chemistry. I had a growing interest in a career in medicine promoted to me by my mother. It was at Pitt that I was lucky enough to meet and marry Pitt’s Homecoming Queen and my beautiful partner for life, Sally. We quickly had two children. Our finances did not allow me to go to an Ivy League medical school, so I entered Pitt and worked part-time afternoons in a biochemistry lab that investigated adrenal steroid hormone synthesis; I also worked at a local hospital in the evenings, simply for family income.