Abstract: Anne attended Vassar College as an undergrad. In college, Anne played basketball, field hockey and lacrosse. After winter break, she no longer felt like herself, stayed in her room listening to the Rubber Soul album on repeat, and had violent thoughts. One morning, overcome by a panic, Anne ran outside screaming. Her friends raced after her and forced her to go to the little health center on campus. After a while, a psychiatrist asked Anne about the problem. She said nothing, but after a few days, it was clear she would not be let out until she talked. She told the psychiatrist she wanted to kill people. He asked Anne what she wanted to do in life, and she told him she wanted to be a doctor. He said it was a bad idea; she should take some time off from school. Eventually, her depression, which lasted for months, stopped on its own, but it was not the last time she would be depressed. Anne spent summers in Chicago working at local hospitals. Anne got good grades. She was a chemistry major and philosophy and art history minor. Anne’s pediatrician suggested she apply to institutions offering a combined MD/PhD program so she could work in the lab and/or with patients. She graduated summa cum laude in chemistry and thirteenth in the 1969 class of 400.

Abstract: Anne officially finished her required clerkships in just nine months by the end of December 1971. After creating a combined MD and PhD degree, she officially became the first MD/PhD graduate student to work in Sol Snyder’s lab. The combined degree program provided tools to work at the interface between basic research and clinical patient care. Throughout Anne’s time at Johns Hopkins, she noticed a certain type of confidence the male students had, even if they were inaccurate. Sol put Anne on a project to determine whether homocarnosine was a neurotransmitter. Anne was hit by a car. She was in the ER and eventually the ICU due to fat emboli. The senior neurologist at Johns Hopkins told Jack that Anne had a 25–50 percent chance of survival. She was given large doses of steroids and survived. Within five weeks of her accident, Anne was back at the lab. Her enthusiasm for the homocarnosine project had waned because it was unlikely to be a neurotransmitter. Anne met fellow graduate student Candace Pert. Their lab benches were across from one another. Pert discovered a new method to measure opiate receptors in the brain.