Nikki was the person that helped switch the interest of the lab to signaling back in 1983. She cloned the IL-2 gene and with David Durand defined the regulatory regions of the IL-2 gene. She and David began our march backward through the Ca2+/Calcineurin/NF-AT signaling pathway in 1982. Nikki inherited Jerry’s lab when he left the NIH. Later she became Chief of the Laboratory of Genetics at the NIA, NIH. Just recently she joined the faculty at Yale University.