What It Takes®

Millions of lives are saved each year with the vaccines developed by these two Nobel Prize recipients.  Their discoveries were some of the  greatest medical achievements of the 20th century.    Gertrude Elion was a biochemist, who unraveled the mysteries and mechanisms of leukemia, herpes, gout, malaria & meningitis in order to create effective medications. She transformed kidney transplantation, by creating the first immune suppressant to prevent rejection by organ recipients.   And her work led to the first successful HIV/AIDS drug.  Baruch Blumberg was a physician who traveled the world studying the interplay of genetics and environment on disease response, and along way discovered the virus that was causing Hepatitis B - a leading cause of fatal kidney disease and cancer.  He then created a vaccine for it, and is believed to have prevented more cancer deaths than any other human being. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

If Anthony Fauci was not on your radar before the Covid-19 pandemic, he certainly is now. Dr. Fauci is a lead member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and a trusted daily presence in the news. Many now view him as America’s MD. We told the inspiring story of Dr. Fauci’s life and career on this podcast in July of 2018. Under the circumstances, it seemed time for an encore: This is the story of a remarkable doctor who, in 1981, became one of the first scientists to recognize that we were on the verge of a new and terrible epidemic - HIV/AIDS - and then devoted his career to understanding and finding treatments for it. Dr. Fauci has been at the forefront of HIV/AIDS research ever since. Along the way, he also became the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, overseeing research into every frightening outbreak imaginable: Ebola, Plague, SARS, Zika, Anthrax, Malaria, Tuberculosis, Influenza, etc… He talks here to Nina Totenberg, for the Academy of Achievement, about growing up as the grandson of Italian immigrants, and about how an education in the classics prepared him for medical school. He recalls how he became a target of the AIDS activist movement, but turned out to be one their greatest champions. And he describes his relationship with presidents and lawmakers and the news media, throughout decades of medical crises. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2018-2020

He was an outspoken proponent of the free market and small government, and one of the most influential economists of all time. Milton Friedman's ideas on monetary policy, taxation, privatization and deregulation have had enormous impact on government policies in the U.S. (and around the world) for over 50 years, including the Federal Reserve’s response to the global financial crisis. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976. Friedman talks here about growing up in a home with poorly-educated, immigrant parents, and about how he fell in love with math. He explains how the Depression and the New Deal opened his eyes to the importance of economics.  And he lays out his analysis of market forces and the role of government.  Thirty years after this interview was recorded, his ideas are as provocative as ever.(c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

There’s one person who can claim to have played harmonica with Willie Nelson AND been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine… and that's James (Jim) Allison. Dr. Allison is the scientist who unlocked the secrets of the immune system, to develop a wildly successful treatment for melanoma and several other kinds of cancer.  Immunotherapy is now considered the “fourth pillar” of cancer treatment, alongside surgery, radiation and chemo.  For years, he faced the doubts and derision of the cancer establishment. But for Dr. Allison, the race to come up with a better approach to curing cancer was deeply personal.  His mother and uncles and brother all died of cancer. And he himself has had cancer three times. He talks here about his earliest aspirations to become a biologist, growing up in a town where evolution wasn’t taught in school. He movingly describes the first time he met a patient whose life was saved by his research.  And yes, he explains how it is he came to play with Willie Nelson. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

The most decorated regiment in US history was the 442nd, a segregated Japanese-American unit that fought in Europe after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But while they were bravely risking their lives for their country, 120,000 of their fellow Japanese-Americans were languishing in internment camps, simply because of their ethnicity. U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye was in the first group. Representative Norman Mineta was in the second. Both have stories that are profoundly disturbing, but are also a testament to the triumph of the human spirit.(c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

For 50 years, he has carried the torch for the blues. Buddy Guy learned by listening to the greats that came before him, and then he made the blues his own.  He is one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and an extraordinary showman, who inspired a generation of rock n' rollers, including Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and countless others.  He talks here about his early days picking cotton in rural Louisiana, about making his first guitar with strings pulled from a window screen, and about his abiding friendship with BB King.  As Buddy Guy says: "If you haven't had the blues, just keep living." (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

Two of the most daring and celebrated playwrights working today talk about their lives, their work, and why they love writing for the stage. Both Lynn Nottage and Suzan-Lori Parks have won the Pulitzer Prize for plays that portray the struggles of African-Americans and working class people, but their approaches are quite different. Nottage talks here about the extensive research that grounds her, whether she's writing about Congolese women in wartime or laid-off workers in the Rust Belt. Parks talks about freeing her imagination, and entertaining her wildest ideas as if they were guests at a dinner party.(c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

This son of a sharecropper tells the story of how he grew up to become a legendary leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a 17-term Congressman from the state of Georgia. He describes his political and spiritual awakenings, and recounts how he learned to live fearlessly and non-violently, despite the many beatings and arrests he endured -- at lunch counter sit-ins and during the march from Selma to Montgomery.  You'll hear archival sound from those events as well, and an excerpt of John Lewis speaking at the March on Washington when he was just 23 years old.   Some of the musical excerpts in the episode, including "We Shall Overcome," are from the Charlie Haden & Hank Jones album, "Steal Away," on Verve Records.(c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

These three visionaries changed the way we live our daily lives. You'll hear remarkable archival recordings of each, when they were young successful entrepreneurs, but before history had proven the scale of their impact. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, describes how, as a teenager, he first envisioned the potential for computers to become fixtures in our homes. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, talk about their accidental discovery of the algorithm that would allow us to search and make sense of the new world-wide web's information explosion. And they all talk about taking risks to embrace the future.(c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

He has won more Grammy Awards than any other male country singer, but Vince Gill never set out to be a star. He just wanted to play guitar and sing, and you can hear his reverence for music in this intimate interview. He describes his first guitar - a Christmas gift from his father, and his early days playing music in Oklahoma. He explains why he's always been happiest collaborating with other musicians, and he shares a wonderful tale about recording with Eric Clapton. He also walks us through the musical components of his first hit song. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2019