Ackman dangles meeting with ‘Hamilton’ star for rapper scientist
Christopher Mason, Ph.D. Photographer: Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images for Pershing Square
The Park Avenue Armory presents some interesting theater, but it’s never seen anything like the Wednesday night performance by Christopher Mason, an associate professor of computational genetics at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Standing in front of the Tiffany blue-glass mosaic in the Armory’s Veterans Room -- recently restored at a cost of more than $8 million -- Mason rapped in honor of the 2016 presentation of the Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research.
Pershing Square Capital Management’s Bill Ackman immediately rose to show his appreciation."Like Aristotle gives philosophy, these models reveal radiation oncology," Mason rhymed, before taking aim at cell checkpoints, "precariously shifting states, endlessly nefarious as they ablate the orderly procession of lineage fates." Mason also described "splitting, conscripting, and hitting mutant RNAs with new therapeutic forays."
"The really sad thing is we’re going to lose him to Broadway," Ackman said, before suggesting he could make it happen. "Actually, I know Lin-Manuel," he said of the star and creator of the musical "Hamilton," indicating just how helpful a well-connected and philanthropic hedge fund manager can be.
This is an excerpt of an article that appeared in Bloomberg. Read the full story here.