Biographical Memoirs Volume 59 (1990) / Chapter Skim
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Edward Lawrie Tatum
Edward Lawrie Tatum
Pages 356-387
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From page 357... ...
A still more enduring legacy is their development of experimental techniques for the mutation analysis of biochemical pathways used claily by modern biologists. Though this sketch is written as a biography of Edward Tatum, these singular scientific accomplishments were in practice and attribution- intimately shared with BeacIle.
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From page 358... ...
Arthur's own father, Lawrie Tatum, a Quaker who hac! settled in the Iowa Territory, hac!
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From page 359... ...
on the effect of associated growth of bacterial species Lactobacillus and Clostrt~ium septicum giving rise to racemic lactic acid. (In 1936 he clemonstratec!
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From page 360... ...
a genre of studies showing that many bacterial species tract diverse requirements for these identical substances. This was outstanding confirmation of the basic tenet of comparative biochemistry- the evolutionary conservation of biochemical processes that produced common processes in morphologically diversified species.
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From page 361... ...
His research program In pnys~ological genetics was to continue the work on the genetics of Drosophila eye pigments that he tract initiated in colIaboration with Boris Ephrussi, first at Caltech, then in Paris. The Rockefeller Foundation's support of this enterprise was one of Warren Weaver's most foresighted initiatives in the gestation of molecular biology.5 I.ooking out for a possible position for Tatum, his profes4 F
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From page 362... ...
to prove that it was a source of the elusive hormone. The interchangeability of growth factors for bacteria and animals and the knowledge that many microbes synthesized vitamins requirecl by other species undoubtedly bolstered this theory.
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From page 363... ...
The jarring experience of having their painstaking work overtaken in so facile a way impellecl Beadle and Tatum to seek another organism more tractable than Drosophila for biochemical studies of gene action. Neurospora and the One Gene~ne Enzyme Theory In winter quarter 1941, Tatum (although a research associate without teaching responsibilities)
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From page 364... ...
:1-13. In his chapter, "Biochemical Genetics, Some Recollections," in Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology, eds.
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From page 365... ...
In that same year Tatum was recruited as an assistant professor to the regular faculty of Stanford's Biology Department, where he developed an increasingly independent research program exploiting the use of Neurospora mutants for the exploration of biochemical pathways. Despite the exigencies of the war effort, an increasing number of talented graduate students and postdoctoral fellows flocked to Stanford to learn the new discipline.
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From page 366... ...
BeacIle, in his Nobel Prize lecture in INS, was careful to acknowledge these antececlents, though widely quotes! reminiscences have blurred the cletaits of just when Beadle and Tatum became aware of Garrocl's work.
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From page 367... ...
"rapidly disappearing belief that genes are concerned only with the control of 'superficial' characters." It would appear, then, that while Garrod unclerstood how genetic anomalies could assist in the unravelling of metabolic pathways anct that biochemical individuality was a hallmark of human nature, he had no comprehensive theory of gene action. Any geneticist, however, would wish to give alcaptonuria a textbook example of a biochemical genetic defect full credit as a paradigm on par with the pigment mutation in flowers or in insect eyes.
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From page 368... ...
Today, four decades later, analyzing (levelopmental and physiological pathways by systematically cataloguing mutants that block them is standard procedure and Beadle and Tatum's papers are rarely cited. Taken for granted, this methoclology is yet central to sophisticated studies in physiology, development, and gene action and is of incalculable consequence to biotechnology.
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From page 369... ...
A year later Beadle and his formidable team left Stanford en bloc to reshape the biology program at Caltech. At Yale Tatum held a tenured chair and was charged with cleveloping a biochemically-orientecl microbiology program with the Department of Botany.
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From page 370... ...
At Stanford, Ryan had established a warm friendship with Tatum, and hearing that he was moving to Yalesent him Lederberg's proposals for studying genetic recombination in bacteria. On the strength of Ryan's commendation Tatum invited Lederberg to join his laboratory at New Haven starting March 1946, where he was supported financially by the Jane Coffin Childs Fund.
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From page 371... ...
Tatum, with his particular brand of biochemical insights, pursued and supervised research projects that reconciled a variety of interests introduced by his students and colleagues. In early anticipation of the now famous Ames Screening Test, he became increasingly interested in the analogy between mutagenesis and carcinogenesis.
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From page 372... ...
During the decade 1948 to 195S, Stanford macle a bicI to become a major center of scholarship, while California grew in economic, technological, clemographic, and political influence. Stanforcl's then new president, the late I
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From page 373... ...
THE ROCKEFELEER INSTITUTE (1957—1975) In 1953 Detiev Bronk, president of the National Academy of Sciences, left Johns Hopkins to assume the presidency of The Rockefeller Institute in New York, marking the expansion of the Institute into a graduate university.
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From page 374... ...
In his Prize lecture, Tatum reviewed the history of biochemical genetics in his anct Beatile's hands. Comparing microbial cultures to populations of tissue cells, he saw cancer as a genetic change subject to natural selection.
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From page 375... ...
Edwarc! Lawrie Tatum was survived by two daughters
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From page 376... ...
My own familiarity with Neurospora, dating to 1942 when Ryan returned from Stanford to Columbia, qualifies me only barely.~5 The one gene-one enzyme theory that a gene acts by controlling the formation of a specific enzyme in some fairly simple manner was implicit in earlier research on pigment biosynthesis. Before 1941 }.
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From page 377... ...
Beadle and Tatum's contribution, then, comprised the following: 1) A methodology for the investigation of gene-enzyme relationships that exploited experimentally-acquired genetic mutations affecting specific biosynthetic steps.
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From page 378... ...
He was chairman of the Scientists' Institute for Public Information and an advisor to the City of Hope Meclical Center, Rutgers University Institute of Microbiology, and SIoan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, and a consultant in microbiology for Merck and Co. He worked actively on many scientific publications, inclucling Annual Reviews, Science, Biochemica et Biophysica Acta, Genetics, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry.
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From page 379... ...
I am particularly indebted to Professor Carlton Schwerdt for having preserved and made available his lecture notes on Tatum's 1941 course on comparative biochemistry, to June Alton Tatum for making available to me materials regarding Tatum's life before 1946, and to the staff of the Rockefeller University Archive Center. I am also indebted to the following important studies for information that appears in this account: R
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From page 380... ...
Essential growth factors for propionic acid bacteria.
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From page 381... ...
The genetic control of biochemical reactions in Neurospora: A mutant strain requiring isoleucine and valine.
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From page 382... ...
Characterization of a valine analog accumulated by a mutant strain of Neurospora crassa.
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From page 383... ...
A precursor of isoleucine obtained from a mutant strain of Neurospora crassa.
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From page 384... ...
Garnjobst. A cytoplasmic character in Neurospora crassa.
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From page 385... ...
Phosphoglucomutase mutants and morphological changes in Neurospora crassa.
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From page 386... ...
Purification and partial characterization of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase from Neurospora crassa.
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