Contributions of Microorganisms to Industrial Biology

Life on earth is not possible without microorganisms. Microbes have contributed to industrial science for over 100 years. They have given us diversity in enzymatic content and metabolic pathways. The advent of recombinant DNA brought many changes to industrial microbiology. New expression systems have been developed, biosynthetic pathways have been modified by metabolic engineering to give new metabolites, and directed evolution has provided enzymes with modified selectability, improved catalytic activity and stability. More and more genomes of industrial microorganisms are being sequenced giving valuable information about the genetic and enzymatic makeup of these valuable forms of life. Major tools such as functional genomics, proteomics, and metabolomics are being exploited for the discovery of new valuable small molecules for medicine and enzymes for catalysis.     

George A. Bartholomew's Contributions to Integrative and Comparative Biology

The Bartholomew Award has now completed a decade of recognizingoutstanding young investigators in comparative physiology andbiochemistry or in related fields of functional and integrativebiology. It honors Professor George A. Bartholomew (Bart tohis many students and other friends), whose research contributionscontinue to be important in shaping these fields. Bart's influencereflects a steadfast adherence to a set of basic precepts: theinherent unity of biology; the need for an evolutionary perspectivein functional studies; the value of modern natural history inguiding research investigations; the focus on the organism andits function in nature, even in highly reductionist studies;the importance of biological variability within and betweenspecies; and the crucial interactions of physiology and behaviorin allowing animals to deal with environmental challenges. Werehe to have done nothing else in his career, he would remainan important figure in the fields with which the Society ofIntegrative and Comparative Biology's (SICB) Division of ComparativePhysiology and Biochemistry is concerned. However, his influenceis also felt through his inspirational performance as an undergraduateteacher, his skill and wisdom as a graduate mentor, his manyservices to the University of California, his insightful contributionsto scientific committees and policy boards at the national level,and his presidency of the American Society of Zoologists (nowSICB). This symposium offers the opportunity for honoring Bartfor all his accomplishments and fine personal qualities, whileillustrating the contributions of the impressive set of youngerinvestigators who are recipients of the George A. BartholomewAward.     

The pneumococcus and some men who came to Yale: the Dorothy M. Horstmann Lecture.

Yale has been fortunate indeed to have had Dorothy Horstmann as a member of its faculty for all but one of the last 50 years. It has had also the wisdom to take cognizance of her value as an individual and of her contributions to biomedical science and human welfare on two occasions in recent years. Her studies of poliomyelitis, hepatitis, and rubella, executed with perceptiveness, rigor and modesty, have benefited countless numbers; and for her many achievements all are in her debt. I am beholden to her colleagues for this opportunity to pay tribute to a wise and gracious friend. In casting about for a subject befitting this occasion, the thought occurred that it might be of interest to examine the contributions of some former and present members of Yale''s faculty to the subject of a group of infections still endemic in all human societies, namely those caused by Streptococcus pneumoniae or the pneumococcus. The list is doubtless not exhaustive but includes such notables as Winternitz, Blake, Paul, Trask, Eaton, and Beeson of former days, as well as reflecting ongoing investigations today by Eugene Shapiro and his colleagues. In reviewing some of this earlier work, it will be my endeavor to place it in the context of contemporary understanding. In the interest of some semblance of order, the material will be examined in topical rather than in chronological order, dealing with bacteriologic and immunologic, pathogenetic, therapeutic, and prophylactic considerations in that sequence.