A fiesty hearing on 93-year-old researcher's suit

A federal judge Monday listened to the growing rift between renowned 93-year-old vaccine researcher Hilary Koprowski and his employer, Thomas Jefferson University.

The scientist was seeking a court order to stop Jefferson from reducing his office space until his discrimination suit is heard. But beneath the squabble over rooms were profound issues of money, aging, progress, and respect.

"I don't know where this thing went off track," said U.S. District Judge Berle M. Schiller, after a two-hour hearing. "I think you lawyers ought to sit down . . . and work this out. This is absurd."

In June, Koprowski accepted a one-year employment contract that the university has called a final renewal. But last month, when Jefferson officials moved to dramatically curtail his quarters, Koprowski sued, claiming they were violating the Americans With Disabilities Act by ignoring his age-related needs.

Both his age and his feisty defiance of it were on display during Monday's hearing.

Gaunt and stooped, Koprowski used a cane and his assistant's arm to walk to the witness stand. He struggled to hear questions, despite wearing a hearing aid. At one point, he erroneously claimed to be 97 - then couldn't remember his birth date when asked.

But his answers were sharp and testy when Jefferson's lawyer, William A. Harvey, challenged him.

"Prior to July," Harvey asked, "did you tell anyone at the university that you had age-related disabilities?"

"How should I do that? Trumpet it on the campus?" Koprowski retorted. "People can see me walking with a stick."

Koprowski acknowledged Jefferson officials increased his final year's salary from $100,000 to $134,000 at his request, but called it "my real old salary, nothing generous."

A native of Poland who fled with his wife in the wake of the Nazi invasion in 1939, Koprowski pioneered vaccines against polio, German measles, and rabies, as well as lab-made antibodies that fight cancer.

He moved to Jefferson in 1992 after an acclaimed but stormy 34-year tenure as director of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, which also ended with lawsuits.

At Jefferson, he has focused on genetically engineering plants to carry vaccines. The work has been funded with grants from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Harvey told the judge that those grants have not covered all the costs of Koprowski's multiple labs and support staff, which operated as the Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories Inc.

This year, when Koprowksi's funding was not renewed, the university shut down the foundation, but offered Koprowski the final one-year contract "in recognition of their high regard" for him, Harvey said.

Initially, Jefferson refused to let Koprowski retain - at his own expense - his assistant and four other staff members, even though he said he needed them to help him compensate for his age-related hearing and mobility problems.

Jefferson relented on that point, but still wanted Koprowski to give up his labs and move from a 1,400-square-foot office suite to a space less than one-third as large.

Jefferson needs some of Koprowski's space to house a newly created Center for Computational Medicine, which is being headed by a newly hired scientist, said Mark L. Tycocinski, the dean of Jefferson Medical College.

"There are a lot of moves. A lot of juggling is going on," Tycocinski said.

The smaller office is "completely inadequate" to accommodate Koprowski's assistants and his vast collection of scientific publications, he declared during questioning by his lawyer, Alan Epstein.

At the end of testimony, Schiller said he would rule next Monday - unless both sides exercised some common sense.