Biographical Memoirs Volume 80 (2001) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Michael Heidelberger
Michael Heidelberger
Pages 122-141
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 123... ...
Avery, that powerful antigens of the highly pathogenic pneumococcus are polysaccharicles. This discovery ultimately enablecl him en cl a small group of colleagues to show clecisively that antibodies 123
|
From page 124... ...
to New York to work at the Rockefeller Institute on a series of projects in association with more senior investigators. Initially, with Walter Jacobs, he synthesized many drugs, especially aromatic arsenicals clesignecl to treat various infectious diseases, including poliomyelitis and syphilis.
|
From page 125... ...
from this inventive iclea, Heiclelberger notecl wryly, with his typically quiet humor, that he received $50 from the company for writing a descriptive manual for the new instrument. Later, when Karl Lancisteiner, the notecl immunologist who hacl cliscoverecl human bloocl groups, movecl from the Netheriancis to become a member of the Rockefeller Institute, he askocl Heiclelberger to join him in studying the antigenic properties of oxy- and reduced hemoglobin.
|
From page 126... ...
from that patient or from others infected by the same type. They inferred that the specific soluble substance they hacl cliscoverecl was type-specific capsular material shec!
|
From page 127... ...
Finally, the identity of the purified carbohydrate as the long sought specific soluble substance was accomplishecl by precipitating it with antiserum specific for pneumococcus type II, en cl then recovering the carbohydrate from the precipitate. Subsequently, the capsular material from many other pneumococcal types was isolatecI.
|
From page 128... ...
be known as someone else's." Accorclingly, he accepted an offer to become "chemist" to the Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, heacling up their busy analytical chemistry lab, a job that left little time for research.
|
From page 129... ...
the Heiclelberger lab, the protein content of immune precipitates was cleterminecl by measuring total nitrogen, using the Kjelciahl procedure that came to be the hallmark of laboratories carrying out Heiclelberger-type quantitative immunochemistry. Quantitative analyses of immune precipitates establishecl that the proportions of antigen en c!
|
From page 130... ...
An antiserum couicI, for example, protect animals against infection with those bacteria, agglutinate the bacteria, precipitate soluble components from culture medium in which they hacl been cultivatecI, en c! enhance their phagocytosis by white blooc!
|
From page 131... ...
couIcl specifically precipitate the type III polysaccharide, agglutinate type III pneumococci, en c! most notably, protect mice against a lethal infection with these bacteria.
|
From page 132... ...
But Heidelberger's most significant war-related research effort stemmed again from the pneumococcal polysaccharides. In an effort to reduce the large number of cases of pneumonia in some Army camps, where recruits lived under crowded conditions, studies were carried out to determine whether injections of purified polysaccharide would elicit protective antibody responses.
|
From page 133... ...
The antipolysaccharicle antibodies must be remarkably effective, as it appears that at extremely low levels they can prevent infection. Once formed, they persist for many months in serum with little decrease, perhaps because mammalian tissues lack enzymes that clegracle polysaccharicle antigens.
|
From page 134... ...
. Currently, therefore, pneumococcal and other bacterial polysaccharide antigens are linked in vaccines to carrier proteins, the protein moiety providing the antigenic pepticles that stimulate the T cells neeclecl for optimal antibody responses.
|
From page 135... ...
But one afternoon it rained, en cl Heiclelberger en cl his wife, an accomplishecl violinist, en cl Felix Haurowitz, afine pianist (ancl the originator of the antigen template hypothesis to explain the diversity and specificity of antibodies, entertained the gathering with an impromptu performance of wonclerful chamber music. As expected, Heiclelberger's personal life hacl joys en cl sorrows.
|
From page 136... ...
From that intensive study of the pneumococcus, and the infectious disease it causes in humans, there emerged the Heidelberger-Avery discovery that the potent capsular antigen of the pneumococcus was a polysaccharicle and Avery, McCarty, and MacLeod's demonstration that DNA is the carrier of genetic information for the polysaccharide's production. Heiclelberger's continual pursuit of the immune response to those polysaccharides had a profound impact on immunology: It changer!
|
From page 137... ...
IN PREPARING this memoir I have drawn extensively on Heidelberger's detailed autobiographical accounts that appeared in Annual Review of Biochemistry (48 1 1979 l :1-21) , Immunological Reviews (83 1 1985 l :6-22)
|
From page 138... ...
A quantitative study of the precipitin reaction between type III pneumococcus polysaccharide and purified homologous antibody.
|
From page 139... ...
The precipitin reaction between type III pneumococcus polysaccharide and homologous antibody.
|
From page 140... ...
The human antibody response to simultaneous injection of six specific polysaccharides of pneumococcus.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.