Thomas H. Weller

Thomas Huckle Weller was born on June 15th 1915 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Born into a family of physicians, his father served as chair of pathology at the University of Michigan Medical School.Weller attended the University of Michigan where he studied biology earning his BA in 1936. He completed his masters a year later and then went to  Harvard Medical School where he studied tropical medicine, graduating in 1940. Weller began his residency at Children's Hospital in Boston in 1941, but his training was interrupted by World War II and three years of service in the United States Army where he earned the rank of major and he headed the departments of bacteriology, virology and parisitology at the Army research station in Puerto Rico. After the war Weller returned to Harvard and the Department of Comparative Pathology and Tropical Medicine where he worked under John Franklin Enders.

Enders was working on growing viruses in culture. Viruses, unlike bacteria, are unable to reproduce on their own, so strictly speaking they are not living organisms. Viruses require a host cell in order to reproduce. Each cell has a mechanism by which it reproduces itself. Viruses take over this mechanism and use it to produce more viruses. Viruses grown in the laboratory must be grown in a cell culture. Different viruses infect and use different types of cells to reproduce. Enders and Weller were studying which types of cultured cells could be used to grow different types of viruses. Working with Enders, Weller was the first to be able to grow poliovirus in culture. Poliovirus enters humans via the the cells of the alimentary canal and migrates to other cells. It can infect motor neuron cells causing paralysis. For their development of the ability to cultivate the poliovirus Weller, Enders, and Frederick C. Robbins were awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. With the ability to grow poliovirus in culture Jonas Salk was able to create a vaccine for polio and the disease has virtually been eliminated.

In 1954 Weller was appointed the Richard Pearson Strong Professor of Tropical Public Health, which he remained until 1983. In addition to his work growing polio virus, Weller also isolated and grew varicella virus (the virus that causes chicken pox and shingles). He was also able to grow rubella and cytomeglovirus. Weller was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1964. Weller was made professor emeritus in 1984.

Weller died on August 23, 2008.


References:

McIntosh, Kenneth; "Thomas H. Weller:1915-2008"; National Academy Press; 2011

Roache, Christina; "Thomas H. Weller, Nobel Laureate, Professor Emeritus, Dies"; Harvard School of Public Health press releases; August 26, 2008

Thomas Weller Nobel Biography

Thomas Weller Wikipedia Entry

Martinus Beijernick

Martinus Willem Beijernick was born on March 16, 1851 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Beijernick's father's tobacco business also failed that year and the family moved to Naarden, where he found work as a clerk working for the Holland Railway Company. Due to the family's financial situation Beijernick was educated by his father until he was 12 when he went to elementary school and then secondary school in Haarlem. With the encouragement of his science teacher Beijernick developed an interest in botany and at 15 he won a prize for his collection of plant samples that included 150 different species.

With the help of his family, Beijernick entered Delft Polytechnical Academy and although he studied chemistry his main interest remained botany. While there he met J. H. Van Hoft who he remained friendly throughout his career and served as an adviser to Beijernick. Beijernick earned a bachelors in chemical engineering in 1872 and then when to the University of Leiden where he earned his doctorate in 1877. While working on his doctorate Beijernick taught, but he was a poor teacher who berated his students for wrong answers and he did not remain in one teaching position for long. In 1885 Beijernick became a microbiologist at the Netherlands Yeast and Alcohol Manufactory in Delft. In 1895 he established the School of Microbiology at Delft Polytechnical.

Beijernick was unique among microbiologists at the time in that he researched the microorganisms that affected plants rather than those that affect humans. He was the first to discover that viruses were smaller than bacteria when he found that he was unable to filter the tobacco mosaic virus unlike bacteria. He was the first to isolate a sulfate reducing bacteria, the first microorganism that did not use carbon as a source of nutrition. He was also the first to isolate bacteria that complete nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen gas makes up 78% of the atmosphere but because the nitrogen-nitrogen bond is so stable nitrogen gas does not react with other atoms. Nitrogen fixating bacteria reduce nitrogen gas to become ammonia, which can react with other atoms and is used by plants as a nitrogen source. This is an important source of nitrogen, that is used to make amino acids, which are used to synthesize proteins by living organisms.

Beijernick retired in 1921 and died on  January 1, 1931.


References:

Chung, King-Thom and Ferris, Dean Hunter; "Martinus Willem Beijernick (1851-1931) Pioneer of General Microbiology"; ASM News (1996)62:539-543

Johnson, James; "Martinus Willem Beijernick: 1851-1931"; retrieved from apsnet.org.

Martinus Beijernick Wikipedia Entry

Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser

Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser was born on January 22, 1855 in Scheidnitz a town near Breslau, Prussia (now the Polish city of Worclaw). His father, Moritz Neisser was a well known Jewish physician and was widowed when Neisser was 1 year old. Consequently Neisser was raised by his stepmother. Neisser attended elementary school and then gymnasium in Breslau. At the gymnasium young Neisser met young Paul Ehrlich, beginning a lifelong friendship. He began attending the University of Breslau in 1872, but moved to Erlagen and the university there, graduating with a medical degree in 1877. Initially Neisser opted for a residency as an internist, but unable to get it he instead took a residency in dermatology.  After completing his training he took a junior faculty position at the University of Leipzig in 1880.

It was during his residency that Neisser made both of his principal discoveries. At the time of his residency the practice of dermatology was combined with vernereology, the study of sexually transmitted diseases. In 1879, at the age of 24, Neisser published his first and most famous paper where he described "micrococci" in smears, stained with methyl violet, isolated from 25 men and 9 women with purulent urethritis and two patients with acute ophthalmia, but not from patients with syphilis or balanitis.  At the time there was still confusion about the identities about the causative organisms of gonorrhea and syphilis and Neisser's discovery of what would be identified as the causative agent of gonorrhea was a step in alleviating this confusion.  The "micrococci" isolated by Neisser would later be named Neisseria gonorrhoeae in Neisser's honor.  Cocci (pronounced kok-see) is the word microbiologists use to describe generally spherically shaped bacteria.

Neisser's other important discovery was the co-discovery of the causative agent of leprosy.  Before his discovery it was believed that leprosy was a combination of inherited and environmental factors. In 1874 Norwegian physician Armaur Hansen had isolated "staff like bodies, much like bacteria" from leprous tissue imperfectly stained with osmotic acid, but he was unsure if they were the cause the disease.  In 1879 Neisser visited Norway and took home tissues from leprous patients, most of them given to him by Hansen, and using more advanced staining techniques he identified rod shaped bacilli that he and colleagues thought were a new species and possibly the cause of leprosy. Bacilli (pronounced buh-sil-ahy) is the word microbiologists use to describe rod shaped bacteria. Because in his paper Neisser did not ancknowledge Hansen's earlier finding there emerged a dispute over the priority of the discovery between Neisser and Hansen.Today Hansen is generally given the priority.

Nessier spent two years at the University of Leipzig after which he returned to the University of Breslau as associate professor and director of the dermatology clinic.  Neisserr remained at the University of Breslau for the remaining 34 years of his life. Under his influence the Breslau clinic became an important center for dermatological research and Neisser made contributions to the understanding of many dermatological diseases including anthrax, actinomycosis, psoriasis, mycosis fungoides, and vitiligio. Neisser spent much effort to study syphilis, but was never able to isolate the causative agent. In 1892 in the attempt to give immunity to syphilis, without their knowledge or consent, he injected four young prostitutes with serum from syphilitic patients. All four subsequently developed syphilis and Neisser was condemned for "maliciously inoculating children with syphilis poison".

Through his work at the Breslau dermatology clinic Neisser was a staunch advocate for public health and promoted preventive and educational measures against sexually transmitted diseases.  In 1899 he co-founded the German Dermatological Society and in 1902 the German Society for Combating Venereal Disease. In 1905 and 1906 Nessier traveled to Java to study the possible transmission of syphilis between apes and humans.  He later co-operated with August Paul von Wassermann to develop a test for the causative agent of syphilis and worked with his school friend Paul Ehrlich in testing Salvarsan or "formula 606" an arsenic compound which was the first chemotherapeutic treatment for syphilis.

Neisser died of septicemia on July 16, 1916.


References:

Benedek, Thomas G.; "Albert L. Neisser (1855-1916), Microbiologist and Venerologist"; reprinted at microbe.org

Oriel, J.D.; "Eminent Venereologists: 1. Albert Neisser"; Genitourinary Medicine (1989)65:229-234

Albert Ludwig Sigesmund Neisser Wikipedia Entry

Theobald Smith

Theobald Smith was born on July 31, 1859 in Albany, New York. His father, a German immigrant, ran a small tailoring shop. His mother taught him to play the piano at an early age and he was a good student in math. Smith attended public schools in Albany and won a full tuition scholarship to Cornell University. While at Cornell he earned extra money playing a church organ. He graduated from Cornell in 1881.

After graduation Smith initially intended to go into teaching, but he was unable to find a teaching job. His second choice was medicine and so he attended Albany Medical College graduating in 1883. After two years of medical school he did not feel himself ready for clinical practice so he returned to Cornell for graduate school and began working for Daniel E. Salmon at the newly established Bureau of the Animal Industry, which had been set up by the U.S. Congress in 1884 to fight animal diseases. Without any training in microbiology Smith taught himself by reading the papers of Pasteur, Koch, and Virchow. While at the BAI Smith isolated for the first time what came to be called Salmonella (named after Daniel Salmon) and was able to prove that Texas fever, a debilitating cattle disease, was carried by ticks. This was the first discovery of an arthropod borne disease.

In 1895 Smith took over running the Massachusetts State State Antitoxin Laboratory and in 1896 became professor of comparative pathology at Harvard University. While in Boston he continued his research on animal diseases and established that if animals are repeatedly exposed to a bacteria they become hypersensitive to it. This phenomena is known as anaphylaxis. His work on vaccines established that killed bacteria could act to generate immunity to living bacteria and he established that diphtheria could be vaccinated against by combining diphtheria toxin with its anti-toxin in a vaccine. In 1915 Smith left Harvard for the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research as the head of the Department of Animal Pathology. He remained at the Rockefeller institute until his retirement in 1929.

Smith was considered on of the most notable figures in American medicine at the time. Honors won by Smith include the Copley Medal, awarded by the Royal Society in 1933 and eleven honorary degrees from prestigious universities.

Smith died on December 10, 1934.

References:

Schultz, Myron; "Theobald Smith"; Emerging Infectious Diseases 14:1940-1942 (2008)

Zinsser, Hans; "Biographical Memior of Theobald Smith: 1859-1934" in Biographical Memiors Vol. 17; National Academy Press 1936

Theobald Smith Wikipedia Entry

Rene Dubos

Rene Jules Debos was born on February 20, 1901 in Saint-Brice-sous-Foret, a villiage north of Paris, France. He spent his youth in the village of Henonville, a village of about 450 on the border of Ile-de-France and Picardy. His father, Georges Alexandre Dubos, was a butcher and his parents ran butcher shops in both villages. When he was eight years old he suffered from rheumatic fever, which left him with a damaged heart. His reading of the novels of Jules Verne sparked his interest in science.

He attended high school and the National Institute of Agronomy in Paris, and then briefly served in the French Army, until he was discharged due to his heart condition. He emigrated to America in 1924 and in 1927 he obtained his doctorate from Rutgers University. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1938. Aside from the years 1942 through 1944 when he was a professor of tropical medicine at Harvard University, he spent his in entire scientific career at Rockefeller University.

Dubos' research dealt with microbiology and looking for products of soil bacteria that prevent the growth of pathogenic bacteria. This research culminated in the isolation of Bacillus brevis a soil bacteria that produces a substance he named tyrothricin which contains two substances he named gramicidin and tyrocidine. These antibiotics prevent protein synthesis in gram-positive bacterial, killing them. They have no effect on gram-negative bacterial. This was the first time an antibiotic was isolated from a microorganism. This discovery stimulated Howard Florey and Ernst Chain to research Alexander Flemming's penicillin and Selman Waksmen, Dubos' former teacher, to research what would be streptomycin.

In his later years Dubos wrote several books exploring the interplay of environmental forces on the physical, mental, and spiritual development of mankind and he is responsible for coining the phrase "think globally, act locally". The author of over twenty books, he won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1969 for his book "So Human an Animal". His other honors include election to the National Academy of Science in 1941, the Trudeau Medal from the National Tuberculosis Association in 1951 and he was awarded more than 20 honorary degrees.

He died, on his 81st birthday, February 20, 1982.

References:

Moberg, Carol L.; Rene Dubos, Rene Dubos, Friend of the Good Earth: Microbiologist, Medical Scientist, Environmentalist
; ASM Press (2005)

Montgomerey, Paul L.; "Rene Dubos, Scientist and Writer, Dead"; New York Times; February 21, 1982

"The Life of Rene Dubos: Choosing to be Human" from an exibition at the Rita an Frits Markus Library at library.rockafeller.edu

Rene Dubos Wikipedia Entry

Jesse William Lazear

Jesse William Lazear was born on May 2, 1866 in Baltimore, Maryland. His early education was obtained at Trinity Hall, a private school in Washington, Pennsylvania and he went to Johns Hopkins University, graduating in 1889. He studied medicine at Columbia University, graduating in 1892. After earning his M.D. he served for two years at Bellvue Hospital in New York City, where he was the first person to ever isolate Neisseria gonorrhoeae the causative bacterium of gonorrhea, in pure culture from a blood sample. After finishing his hospital service he spent a year of study and investigation in Europe, during part of which which he worked at the Pasture Institute in Paris. After his return from Europe he was appointed bacteriologist to the medical staff at Johns Hopkins University and also served as the assistant in clinical microscopy at the university.

In February 1900 Lazear reported to Camp Columbia, Cuba for duty as acting assistant surgeon with the U.S. Army Corps. stationed on the island. There he undertook the study of the tropical diseases, particularly malaria and yellow fever, affecting American troops on the island. In May of 1900 he was appointed to a board, which was headed Walter Reed, commissioned to study yellow fever in Cuba.

Yellow fever is a hemorrhagic viral disease that begins suddenly after an incubation period of three to six days. Symptoms include fever, headache, chills, back ache, loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting. In about 15% of cases this acute phase if followed by a toxic phase with symptoms of jaundice (due to liver damage), bleeding in the mouth, gastrointestinal tract and eyes. This toxic phase is fatal 20% of the time. There is no treatment for yellow fever, but there is a vaccine. Yellow fever is transmitted by the bite of the yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) and the tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus).

While he worked at Johns Hopkins, Lazear had followed the research of Sir Ronald Ross concerning the mosquito vector for the transmission of malaria. This experience allowed Lazear to be open to the theories of Cuban scientist Carlos Juan Finlay, who believed that mosquitoes were the vector for the transmission of yellow fever. By June of 1900 Lazear was culturing mosquitoes, from samples he had obtained from Finlay. The board however, acting under the instructions of Army Surgeon General George Miller Sternberg, had been investigating Bacillus icteroides as the causative agent for yellow fever. This line of research quickly proved to be fruitless and Lazear was well prepared to pursue research using mosquitoes as a vector for the disease.

The project started on August 1, 1900, using the mosquitoes that Lazear had cultured. Recording his experiments in a small pocket notebook, Lazear recorded the work of raising and infecting mosquitoes, and on August 11th to the 31st recording a series of inoculations, the last two of which produced full blown cases of yellow fever, proving that the vector for the disease was a mosquito. Although there is no direct evidence of him purposely infecting himself, his notebook was given to Walter Reed and was lost at the time of Reed's death, Lazear became infected with yellow fever, which would prove fatal.

Lazear died on September 26, 1900.

References:

Kelly, Howard Atwood; Walter Reed and Yellow Fever; McClure, Phillips, and Co.; 1906

"Jesse William Lazear (1866-1900)" at the Philip Hench Walter Reed Yellow Fever Collection at yellowfever.lib.virginia.edu

Yellow Fever wikipedia entry