|
Wendell Meredith Stanley
(1904-1971)
He received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946 for his work on the
tobacco mosaic virus, begun in the 1930s and which he crystallized in
1935. The demonstration of the molecular properties of the virus gave
impetus to a new research approach in virology: the study of viruses
as large molecules. This was a departure from the predominant view of
viruses as infectious agents causing disease.
It was partly to pursue this interest in viruses as biological macromolecules
that Stanley left the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research to
found the Virus Laboratory on the Berkeley campus and to build a new
free-standing Department of Biochemistry that was not beholden to a
medical or agricultural school. Stanley's move to the University of
California afforded him the opportunity to assemble a group of young
scientists practicing the latest physical and chemical techniques for
virus studies. Such studies, he believed, would help elucidate mechanisms
of reproduction and biosynthesis at the subcellular level. He and his
colleagues applied the molecular approach to research on various bacterial,
plant, and animal viruses. In 1954, they succeeded in crystallizing
polio virus, the first time an animal virus had been obtained in crystal
form.
Although he was not engaged in formal instruction, Stanley promoted
the blending of teaching and research in a most fruitful way. However,
his success in uniting biochemistry at Berkeley in one department was
short-lived. Tensions stemming from personality clashes and divergent
scientific interests led to Stanley's resignation as Chairman of Biochemistry
in 1953. His group subsequently re-formed as the Department of Virology,
and the Department of Biochemistry relocated to what today is known
as Barker Hall. In 1964, the virologists formed the core of a newly
created Department of Molecular Biology.
Stanley played a major role in shaping enlightened national and international
policy with regard to basic scientific research for the benefit of mankind.
During the growth of the National Institutes of Health after World War
II, he served continuously as an advisor and spokesman. He aided in
the establishment of vigorous fundamental research programs directed
toward the conquest of viral diseases and the study of viruses in relation
to cancer.
As early as 1946, Stanley was suggested as possible chair of a newly
created Department of Biochemistry. University President Robert Gordon
Sproul began negotiations with him, and even before he began work Stanley
had proposed a budget for a virus laboratory, as well as for biochemistry
at the medical school and on the Berkeley campus. By December of 1947,
Stanley was looking for funding possibilities for a new building. He
began his work at Berkeley in July 1948.
The addition of Wendell Stanley to the Berkeley faculty was meant to
increase the University's prestige. This goal can be seen in the last
sentence of the first paragraph to this summary, "Every effort
will be made to develop this combination into the foremost center for
biochemical research in the world."
Stanley wrote, "I have given considerable thought to the Virus
Laboratory and have decided that much would be gained by having it in
close proximity to the Berkeley department of biochemistry...The mutual
stimulation which would result from close proximity would be especially
valuable."
In the early 1950s, even before the new building was completed, part
of the work of the Virus Laboratory was devoted to the poliomyelitis
virus. In research funded by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis,
the polio virus was crystallized in the laboratory in 1954. Lederle
Laboratories announced a polio vaccine during the Stanley Hall opening
ceremonies in 1952, but it was the Salk vaccine that became widely used
a few years later.
Stanley achieved the first crystallization of a virus (1935), the basis
for his Nobel Prize of 1946. He later remarked on the unique position
of viruses at the junction of life and non-life:
Stanley was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946 for his work
on the tobacco mosaic virus. The photograph shows Stanley with the other
chemistry Nobelists of that year, John N. Northrop and James B. Sumner.
|