villa-komaroff felt that these failures aided in her biggest victory: six months after she was able to return to harvard (once the ban on recombinant dna experiments was lifted in 1977), she became a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of nobel laureate walter gilbert. within 6 months, she was the first author of the landmark report from the gilbert laboratory showing that bacteria could be induced to make proinsulin– the first time a mammalian hormone was synthesized by bacteria. the research was a milestone in the birth of the biotechnology industry.