That's rather uninformed of you. The faculty and research done at KI are among the best in the world, especially in both oncology and in immune disorders. If Eng wanted to research infection biology, then there's nothing "wrong" for her to go there there for her Ph.D. studies.

And whether or not her research at KI caused her to go au naturel in Holland V. remains to be seen. Why speculate when we don't know anything?

BTW, not all the biomed work done here in the US is that great - some of the more important recent findings in, for e.g., stem cell research have been done in the UK, Sweden and Japan, rather than in "top" research institutes here like Harvard. It's just that the PR machine here is pretty well-oiled. ;-)

PS: Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "elegant work" as the qualifier for good research?