Abstract: At Ann Arbor, Anne applied for grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which she received. Sid Gilman suggested Anne speak with her health science administrator (HSA) Nancy Wexler for advice. Wexler told Anne her grant proposal was accepted. With the grants, Anne and Jack could spend 80 percent of their time in the laboratory and 20 percent of their time seeing patients (one day a week). The experiments Anne proposed turned out to be complete failures. She decided that it was not worth pursuing further. Instead, Anne and Jack used their time to study the main pathways of the motor system. Jack did the surgery, made and evaluated the lesions and Anne conducted the biochemical experiments. They proposed the idea of a Movement Disorders Clinic to Sid. They hoped to focus on Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and related disorders. Movement disorders fascinated both Anne and Jack because it was a subspecialty relying on direct patient observation. With the stability provided by the grants, Anne and Jack decided to have another child, Ellen. Anne met Nancy Wexler at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta after Ellen was born.

Anne was one of a handful of women in neurology who were truly ‘academic’ – doing NIH-supported research, teaching students and residents, and seeing and treating neurological patients. In 1990, Anne received a letter from the Massachusetts General Hospital asking if she would be willing to be a candidate for chair of the Department of Neurology at the hospital and Julieanne Dorn Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Since she was happy in Michigan, she usually declined these letters, but this one piqued Anne’s interest. Massachusetts General Hospital was supposed to be the pinnacle of traditional, male-dominated medicine. Anne was eventually offered the position. She had to consider her family and if she really wanted to commit. Anne put together a five-year plan and had Nancy, Jack and Herb look at it before she sent it to Mass General. She spoke to Milton Wexler for advice on how to make the decision. Anne decided to take the job. Jack would be appointed professor of neurology and Zane instructor at Harvard Medical School. When she told Sid, he was sad to lose them but also proud that two of his ‘children’ were moving up to such a prestigious department. When she broke the news to her children that they would be moving across the country, Jessie showed enthusiasm and Ellen showed dismay.