"I think this place deliberately tries to attract and employ and enable scientists with a vision. And that means that they’re looking toward the future, and they have some idea of what the future might bring, right or wrong. So there's no question that at Cold Spring Harbor there's a premium put on attracting that kind of person. Because they are not at a university, they have a little bit more leeway to create an environment that allows that kind of leading-edge creative discovery process to continue.

"Part of that is to have the infrastructure, culture, and facilities to allow it to happen. Part of it is this much more risky and intuitive process of finding those people out there who are driven by these interest levels. Not careerist goals but really fundamental interest in a problem."

— Tim Tully , research biologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL)

"The bar is a really essential aspect of Cold Spring Harbor. It’s a place where people meet, they have a beer, they just relax, and they have a chance to talk about whatever they want to talk about. This is where you bump into people that do something different. Over a beer and a casual conversation, you talk about science. And that’s where you find out that you have so much in common—and that there are, indeed, things that you can learn from somebody that does something completely different. It’s really important to be able to have a regular life, have a beer, and just casually talk about what the problem is you’re studying."

—Marja Timmermans, research biologist at CSHL

"Actually, the bar has been the site for a lot of important initiatives. The initiative to start sequencing the worm C. elegans , for which there were three Nobel prizes, was really started in the bar."

— Bruce Stillman , Director of CSHL