Photo by Scott Taylor 



■ The Bonaventuras 



Joe and Celia 

 Bonaventura 



continued 



"We're just beginning to see all the 

 applications,' ' Celia Bonaventura says. 

 To her, this and the initial discovery 

 that proteins could be "mobilized," or 

 manipulated have been the highlights 

 of her scientific career. 



Besides meeting Joseph Bonaven- 

 tura, of course. 



It was spontaneous combustion in a 

 San Diego, Calif., high school chemis- 

 try class. 



She was a straight A student, and 

 he was a class cut-up who left poems 

 in her books. On their first date, they 

 went to an electronics surplus store. 



A few years later, in 1960, Celia and 

 Joseph married as freshmen at San 

 Diego State College. Then and there 

 they made a pact to become scientific 

 collaborators for life in biochemistry. 



Their interests were so much alike 

 they had to flip a coin before starting 

 graduate school to see who would 

 study what. Fate sent Celia studying 



photosynthesis and energy transfer 

 and Joseph, hemoglobin and protein 

 chemistry at the University of Texas at 

 Austin. 



In 1969, they completed their stud- 

 ies as postdoctoral fellows at the 

 California Institute of Technology, 

 then traveled to Germany and Italy. 



Women in science were few at the 

 time. At Cal Tech, Celia was one of only 

 six women doing post-graduate work. 



But, Celia says, "I found generally 

 that my work spoke for itself. My work 

 was at the forefront, so people were 

 interested in what I was doing. 



"I would say more challenging than 

 being a female was being a female 

 with a family' ' 



she says "It's really hard 



In 1965 and 

 1970, the Bona- not to combine 



venturas had little 



girls, Marina and fun and science 



Michelle. 



With family in when what 

 tow, the couple 



finally began we're doing is 



professional 



collaboration so exciting." 



in Rome. Here, they realized they had 

 differences in approach, but that they 

 could work together. 



"We do think differently," Celia says. 

 "It's interesting to compare insights." 



But both assume a serious respon- 

 sibility for their work. "It's 60-60," 

 Joseph says, "like a marriage." 



"There's so much to do, there's no 

 need or reason for a feeling of com- 

 petitiveness between us,' ' Celia says. 

 "We've been very fortunate in that way' ' 



Their work brought them to Duke 

 Marine Lab in 1972. Now it carries 

 them around the world. All together, 

 they spend about three to four months 

 a year traveling to Brazil, Saudi 

 Arabia, Italy and the likes to give 

 papers, collect samples and work with 

 other scientists. 



Three new projects in biomedicine, 

 directorship of the Duke Marine Bio- 

 medical Center, foreign visitors, a 

 partnership in a fish food business 

 and continued research and applica- 

 tions fill the Bonaventuras' time. 



They work about 16 hours a day, says 

 fellow scientist Dan Rittschof. Until 

 last year, they had never taken a vaca- 



