SPECTRUM: Kendall’s Key Ingredient, by Michael Landing, featuring Prof. Robin Scheffler

-The fabled F&T Restaurant—which attracted a diverse mix of Cambridge locals and MIT students and faculty—was a Kendall Square landmark from the 1920s to the 1980s, when it was demolished. Courtesy of the Cambridge Historical Commission.KENDALL SQUARE IN THE 1970S WAS DESOLATE, effusing the smells of oil and boiling rubber from its waning industrial factories. Add to that the ongoing controversy in Cambridge over the use of recombinant DNA (rDNA)—which had some city officials calling for an outright ban on genetic research—and Kendall seemed like an unlikely place to launch a biotech revolution in the next decade.

READ MORE: Kendall’s Key Ingredient, by Michael Blanding, Spectrum, Fall 2018