Biographical Memoirs Volume 59 (1990) / Chapter Skim
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Cornelis Bernardus Van Niel
Cornelis Bernardus Van Niel
Pages 388-423
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BARKER AND ROBERT E HUNGATE CORNELIS BERNARDUS VAN NIEL Kees to his friends and students—is best known for his discovery of multiple types of bacterial photosynthesis, his decluction that all types of photosynthesis involve the same photochemical mechanism, and his extraordinary ability to transmit his enthusiasm for the study of microorganisms to his students.
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2~. Van Niel's interest ant!
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read many of the works of Zola, Anatole France, Ibsen, Strinctberg, Shaw, and Nietzsche. Their ideas frequently conflicted with van Niel's Calvinist background and lee!
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E degree van Niel accepted a position as assistant to Kluyver.
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that the yield of cells was proportional to the amount of sulfide provided and much greater than that of colorless aerobic sulfur bacteria in a similar medium. These observations and the earlier demonstration that O2 is not proclucect by purple bacteria were interpreted (in accorciance with Kluyver's theory that most metabolic reactions are transfers of hydrogen between donor and acceptor molecules)
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From page 394... ...
Van Niel's dissertation, written in English, was publisher!
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Greatly impressed by van Niel's research accomplishments and his capacity for lucid communication, he offered him an appointment as associate professor. Put off by the reputed materialism of American society, van Nie!
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that the green bacteria oxidized hydrogen sulfide only as far as sulfur, whereas the purple sulfur bacteria further oxiclized the sulfur to sulfate. Both coupled these oxidations with an essentially stoichiometric conversion of carbon dioxide to cellular materials in lightclependent reactions.
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From page 397... ...
G SchIegel, both onetime associates of van Niel, discovered that nutritional and environmental requirements are more complex than had been previously recognizecl.2 Van Nie} published a large monograph covering many years of work on the culture, general physiology, morphology and classification of the nonsulfur purple and brown bacteria in 1944 (1944,21.
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From page 398... ...
These pigments, lacking in the green sulfur bacteria that utilize the easily oxiclizable hydrogen sulfide, occur exclusively .
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When anaerobic cultures are exposed to oxygen, some strains of nonsulfur purple bacteria undergo a dramatic color change from yellow-brown to deep red.
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Van Niel, Goodwin, and Sissins 4 lo.
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He had abandoned the earlier theory that radiant energy participated directly in carbon dioxide activation when he recognized that various nonphotosynthetic bacteria, including several chemoautotrophic species, methanogenic bacteria and propionic acid bacteria, readily utilized carbon dioxide in the dark. Furthermore, the idea that each of the many inorganic and organic compounds used as substrates by the photosynthetic bacteria were directly involved in a photochemical reaction appeared unlikely, particularly since van Nie} had shown that certain organic compounds used by the nonsulfur purple bacteria are oxidized both in the dark with O2 or in the light in the absence of O2.
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From page 402... ...
investigated the energetics of photosynthesis in green sulfur bacteria supplier! with different reducing agents with the object of determining whether the energy released by oxidation of the reducing agents was uses]
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From page 403... ...
Van Niel's influence can also be seen in Pfennig's work on the nutrition and ecology of photosynthetic bacteria. METHANE PRODUCTION AND CARBON DIOXIDE UTILIZATION Van Niel's studies of photosynthetic bacteria led him to consider other processes in which carbon dioxide utilization might occur.
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From page 404... ...
The formation of methane from all but a few organic compounds now appears to require a similar participation of a non-methanogenic bacterium. Van Niel's carbon dioxide reduction theory of methane formation from organic compounds, consequently, is valid only for the syntrophic assoaatlon ot two spears.
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A Barker, at van Niel's suggestion, undertook a stucly of the respiratory activity of the colorless algae Prototheca zoppi.
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a possible sequence for the evolution of various morphological types of bacteria. Starting from a presumably primitive, nonmotile, spherical cell, it progressed along three postulated evolutionary lines to polarly flagelIatecI spirilIa, peritrichously flagellate sporulating rods, and permanently immotile rocis forming conictia.
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CORNELIS BERNARDUS VAN NIEE 407 cetae) shouIcl be combined in the kingdom, Monera, which comprises organisms without true nuclei, plastics, and sexual reproduction.
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. On the basis of new information developed since van Niel's 1955 paper, Stanier and van Nie!
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From page 409... ...
In 1920 Warburg and Negelein reported that algae exposed to light in a nitrate solution produce O2 in the absence of added carbon dioxide. They postulated that the algae used nitrate to oxidize cellular organic compounds to carbon dioxide, which was then used for O2 production by photosynthesis.9 Van Niel, Allen, and Wright proposed the alternative interpretation that nitrate replaces carbon dioxide as the electron acceptor in photosynthesis (1953,11.
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"On radicalism and conservatism in science" (1955,2) , his presidential adciress to the Society of American Bacteriologists in 1954, was a clear statement of van Niel's personal philosophy a strong preference for the heretical and unconventional over established and accepted clogma, despite his recognition of the weaknesses and strengths of both.
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Van Niel's students learned how numerous morphological and physiological types of bacteria, when their nutritional and environmental requirements were known, conic! be enriched and isolated from natural sources.
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tea and coffee breaks. The course was very strenuous for van Niel, who was never particularly robust, and in his later years he was so exhausted by its end he needed some weeks to recuperate.
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The lists of students and auditors who attended van Niel's course between 1938 and 1962 reads like a Who's Who of biological scientists in the United States, with several, as well, from other countries. Both clirectly, and indirectly through his students, van Nie!
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To all students van Nie} gave freely of his time, advice and enthusiasm, drawing on his own extraordinary knowledge of the literature. RETIREMENT Following his retirement from the Marine Station in 1962, van Nie!
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, Rutgers University 1968 LL.D., University of California, Davis FELLOWSHIPS AND PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS 1925-1928 Conservator, Laboratorium voor Microbiologie, Delft 1928-1935 Associate Professor of Microbiology, Stanford Uni versity, Hopkins Marine Station 1935 -1936 Rockefeller Foundation Fellow 1935-1946 Professor of Microbiology, Stanford University 1945 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow 1946-1963 Herstein Professor of Biology, Stanford University 1955-1956 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow 1963-1985 Herstein Professor, Emeritus, Stanford University 1964-1968 Visiting Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz AWARDS AND HONORS 1942 Stephen Hales Prize, American Society of Plant Physiology 1964 Emil Christian Hansen Medalist, Carlsberg Foundation of Copenhagen 1964 National Medal of Science 1966 Charles F Kettering Award, American Society of Plant Physiology 1967 Rumford Medal, American Society of Arts and Sciences 1967 Honorary Volume, Archiv fur Mikrobiologie 1970 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Medal, Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences LEARNED SOCIETIES 1945 National Academy of Sciences 1948 American Philosophical Society 1950 American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1952 Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership, American Society of Plant Physiology
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416 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS 1954 President, American Society for Microbiology 1954 Corresponding Member, Academy of Sciences, Gottingen, Germany 1958 American Academy of Microbiology 1963 Honorary Member, Societe Franchise de Microbiologie 1967 Honorary Member, Society of General Microbiology 1968 Honorary Member, Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters
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Uber Spiegelbilder erzeugende Hefearten und die neue Hefegattung Sporobolomyces. Zentralbl.
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161-69. 1931 On the morphology and physiology of the purple and green sulfur bacteria.
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Zechmeister. Studies on the pigments of the purple bacteria.
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On the energetics of the photosyntheses in green sulfur bacteria.
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van Niel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
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B van Niel, Selected Papers of Ernest Georg Pringsheim.
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From page 423... ...
1971 Techniques for the enrichment, isolation, and maintenance of the photosynthetic bacteria. In: Methods in Enzymology, eds.
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