Biographical Memoirs Volume 47 (1975) / Chapter Skim
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14 Melville Lawrence Wolfrom
14 Melville Lawrence Wolfrom
Pages 486-552
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From page 487... ...
Originally, Melville's father's name was Friedrich Wolfrum, but some time before his marriage he anglicized it to Frederick Wolfrom. Melville's grandfather, Johann Lorenz Wolfrum, brought his family to America from the Sudeten German border town of Asch (now in Czechoslovakia)
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From page 488... ...
His three oldest brothers bought the patent on a type of horse harness snap that was used successfully by several fire departments. After school each day, on Saturdays and holidays, and throughout the summer vacations, Melville worked on the production of these harness snaps and was paid ten to fifteen cents an hour for his labor.
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From page 489... ...
After working for a brief period as an advertising representative for a trade paper, in the autumn of 1919 he entered Washington Square College of New York University. The college unit was new and was not functioning well; no chemistry was offered.
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W Foulk recommended him for a post as student research assistant to Professor William Lloyd Evans of the Department of Chemistry.
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He observed that 2,3,4,6-tetra-0-methyl-D-glucose could be equilibrated with the D-manno epimer in aqueous alkali and that there was no loss of the 2-0-methyl group and no formation of keto sugars. The result pointed to an enediol intermediate common to the two methylated sugars and showed that the mechanism of enol formation was not one of selective hydration and dehydration, as had been suggested by Nef, but rather was consistent with a simple keto-enol tautomerism.
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492 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS sity, where she met her future husband. Throughout their married life, she continued to be involved in music teaching and in musical activities in the community and was ever a sympathetic and stimulating helpmate to her husband.
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By removing the thioacetal groups from the pentaacetate of D-glucose diethyl dithioacetal, he was able to obtain and characterize the acetate of the free aldehyde form of D-glucose; similar work in the D-galactose series followed later. In the autumn of 1929, Wolfrom was appointed Instructor in Chemistry at The Ohio State University and one year later was raised to the rank of Assistant Professor.
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From page 494... ...
With the aid of the successive generations of students who came to carry out their graduate research under his direction, Professor Wolfrom was able to launch a wide-ranging program of research, with problems of structure and reactivity in the carbohydrate field constituting the principal theme. The procedures used for obtaining acetylated aldehydo-D-glucose were systematically extended through the sugar series, and new types of aldose derivatives containing substituents on the hydrated carbonyl gTOUp were obtained; these showed the predictable behavior in being isolable in two isomeric forms, epimeric at C-1.
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From page 495... ...
This interest is reflected in the number of biographical memoirs that he chose to write, especially of his early mentors; these were done with characteristic thoroughness and show his perceptive qualities in understanding human nature. Although he never regarded lightly any of the work he undertook, Wolfrom had a very strong sense of humor, not always recognized by those who did not know him well.
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From page 496... ...
candidates, Professor Wolfrom made his major educational contribution. With these students he was able to pursue research on several broad fronts in the field of the carbohydrates.
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From page 497... ...
M Lowry of Cambridge University, Wolfrom conducted pioneer work on the optical rotatory dispersion of the acyclic sugar acetates and demonstrated the Cotton effects attributable to the asymmetrically perturbed absorption of the carbonvl ~ .
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From page 498... ...
This work formed part of an extensive program of synthesis of nucleoside analogs having structural variation in the carbohydrate moiety, as potential anticancer agents. Professor Wolfrom was always concerned with planning research in a logical, orderly way, and he undertook to fill in some of the gaps left by Emil Fischer in the systematic elaboration of the simple sugars.
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From page 499... ...
Electron paramagnetic resonance studies were conducted by Professor Wolfrom and his group on the remarkably stable, free radicals formed when sugars in the solid state are irradiated. The chemical transformations taking place during the controlled ignition of cellulose nitrate were investigated extensively in a project for the armed services.
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From page 500... ...
Professor Wolfrom devoted many years to the determination of the structure of various polysaccharides. The most challenging of these was heparin, the natural blood anticoagulant.
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In the cellulose field, comparative studies were made on various series of cello-oligosaccharide derivatives as models for the parent polymer; these investigations included oxidation with alkaline hypochlorite as related to the industrial extraction and bleaching of cellulose fibers. Professor Wolfrom had a long-standing interest in the pigments occurring in the osage orange (Maclura pomifera Raf.)
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From page 502... ...
In his new position, Professor Wolfrom was able to concentrate more on his individual teaching effort at the graduate level, although he continued to present courses in the chemistry of carbohydrates. His office was a very modest one, in a long corridor of small research laboratories affectionately known to successive generations of occupants as "Sugar Alley." He spurned the opportunity to move into more spacious and modern quarters when the new Evans Laboratory was added to the department in 1960; he felt a sentimental attachment to the antiquated laboratories whose dust was, as legend had it, rich in the seeds of myriad crystal species.
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I' V ~^ ~~, ~~ I ~ $~1 Loll \~-a"LllQl Exceptionally well organized, Professor Wolfrom hated wasting time.
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Ward Pigman. With the enthusiastic help and collaboration of publisher Kurt Jacoby and the thenfledgling Academic Press, the first issue of the series was launched in 1945.
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The committee continued to consolidate and extend the rules, this time in cooperation with chemists in Great Britain, and in 1951 Professor Wolfrom became chairman of the committee. The joint study of carbohydrate nomenclature by British and American chemists furnished an excellent example of effective cooperation to improve
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From page 506... ...
He met several times with the international committee and laid much of the important groundwork for the set of international rules drafted by that body. In 1959 Professor Wolfrom assumed the duties of Section Editor for the carbohydrates section of Chemical Abstracts, a taslt that he undertook with characteristic thoroughness.
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From page 507... ...
of the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry of the American Chemical Society. In 1965, he was honored by The Ohio State University by being named Regents' Professor, a title created at that time to recognize exceptional distinction in scholarly activity at the university.
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A special issue of the journal Carbohydrate Research, comprised of research contributions by former students of Professor Wolfrom's, was published as the Wolfrom Memorial Issue in April 1970, on the seventieth anniversary of his birth. Also dedicated to his memory was the program of papers presented in Toronto, Ontario, in May 1970, at the joint meeting of the Carbohydrate Division of the American Chemical Society and the Canadian Institute of Chemistry.
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From page 509... ...
26, pp. 23~7, 1971, by Academic Press, Inc.
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From page 510... ...
L Wolfrom, Alva Thompson, and L
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L Wolfrom and Alva Thompson, T
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From page 512... ...
Soc., 60', 571-573. "A Yellow Pigment from the Osage Orange (Maclura pomifera Raf.)
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Soc., 62, 1153-1154. "Osage Orange Pigments.
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From page 514... ...
Soc., 63, 201-203. "Osage Orange Pigments.
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Soc., 64' 2026-2028. "The Action of Diazomethane upon Acyclic Sugar Derivatives.
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1532-1604. "The Action of Diazomethane upon Acyclic Sugar Derivatives.
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From page 517... ...
L Wolfrom, Academic Press, New York.
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From page 518... ...
Peat, Academic Press, New York. 1947 "The Reductive Acetolysis of Nitrate Esters," D
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From page 519... ...
L Wolfrom and Alva Thompson, 7.
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Peat, Academic Press, New York. 1949 "Crystalline Derivatives of Isomaltose," M
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From page 521... ...
Peat, Academic Press, New York. "Degradation of Glycogen to Isomaltose," M
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From page 522... ...
1951 "Osage Orange Pigments.
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Soc., 73, 2933-2934. "The Gentiobiose Heptaacetates," Alva Thompson and M
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Soc., 74, 5334-5336. "Sodium Borohydride as a Reducing Agent in the Sugar Series," M
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Peat, and M Stacey, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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L Hirst, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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L Hirst, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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From page 529... ...
S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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From page 530... ...
Pigman, Ed., Academic Press, Inc., New York, pp.
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"Synthesis of Amino Sugars by Reduction of Hydrazine Derivatives," M
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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Chem., 26, 2998. "Acyclic Sugar Nucleoside Analogs," M
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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From page 537... ...
"Acyclic Sugar Nucleoside Analogs.
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From page 538... ...
Shafizadel~, Academic Press, Inc., New York, pp.
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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From page 540... ...
Chem., 29, 689-691. "Osage Orange Pigments.
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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Chem., 30', 2728-2731. "Acyclic Sugar Nucleoside Analogs.
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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S Tipson, Academic Press, New York.
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S Tipson, Academic Press, Inc., New York.
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From page 547... ...
Horton, Academic Press, Inc., New York. "Mono- and Oligo-saccl~arides," M
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From page 548... ...
Horton, Eds., Academic Press, Inc., New York, pp.
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From page 549... ...
Food Chem., 22, 791-795. "Factors Affecting the Maillard Browning Reaction between Sugars and Amino Acids.
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From page 551... ...
Photograph of John Torrence Tate University of Minnesota Laboratory
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