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Acknowledgment

The most important people who contributed to this story are the ones directly involved. Firstly, there was Yi-Shing Lin, my student at Yang-Ming, who put her pretty eyes, hands, and brain to good use. Although I believe that Yi-Shing and I would eventually have brought out linear chromosomes of Streptomyces on our own, my three-month stay at the John Innes Institute definitely shortened as well as dramatized the progress significantly. For this and for the continuing collaboration, I thank David Hopwood and Helen Kieser, lending me their heads and hands. Many other people at John Innes Institute, such as Tobias Kieser, Keith Chater, Merv and Maureen Bibb, Peter Revile, Kelly Brown, Zi-Xin Deng, Xiu-Fen Lin and Anne Williams, also helped shaping that scintillating and pleasurable experience. In particular, Tin-Wein Yu, a former student of mine who was involved in the overture to this story, provided frequent stimulating discussion and companionship.

In Germany, the parallel studies in John Cullum's lab, particularly those of Pierre Leblond and Matthias Redenbach, helped us tremendously in the early stage of the investigation. The brainstorming over fax between Matthias and myself apprehended the second end of the S. lividans chromosome.

Back in Taiwan, during many of his sabbatical visits, Stan Cohen offered valuable discussion and encouragement. Then there were people in my own lab at Yang-Ming, who offered their high-spirited devotions and support: Hwa-Mei Chang, Li-Fong Lee, Shian-Je Bey, Wen-Yen Lin, Yu-Tsen Tsai, Laurel Chen, and Ching-Dien Lu.

Lastly but not the least, thanks to the members of my family: to my parents for their encouragement and support despite their illness, my wife Jennifer for taking care of them, and, together with our children Nora and Derek, for sharing a wonderful and memorable month in UK with its polite and friendly people and their equally polite and friendly horses.

This article is dedicated to the memory of my father, who passed away shortly after proudly witnessing this exciting period of my life in his sickbed.

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