Gerald Edelman (1929-2014)
Filed under the name Gerald · February 14, 2026
Gerald Edelman won the Nobel Prize for research on the structure of antibodies, work that transformed the entire field of immunology, and I'll be honest, that's about as far from a steel mill floor as a subject gets in this column. But here's what I respect: decades of detailed, patient laboratory work, most of it invisible to anybody outside the field, before it ever added up to something the whole world benefited from. That's not so different from the kind of skilled, patient labor I watched go into building steel for years, work nobody outside the plant ever thought much about until the finished product showed up somewhere useful. Edelman's research eventually helped a lot of people who never knew his name, which is true of most real work, mill work included. I don't pretend to understand the science, my knees and my union card never took me anywhere near a research lab, but I know dedicated, patient work when I read about it, in any field.