by Leigh Ann Gardner (Senior Grants Manager)
In May, we celebrate the contributions and achievements of Asian American and Pacific Islanders for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month as well as the contributions and achievements of Jewish Americans with Jewish American Heritage Month. Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month began as a 10-day celebration in 1977, and you can learn more about it here. Jewish American Heritage Month was first proclaimed in 2006, and you can learn more about it here.
May 8: American Nobel Prize winner, H. Robert Horvitz, was born on May 8, 1947, in Chicago to a Jewish family. After receiving a BS from MIT in mathematics, Horvitz studied biology at Harvard, receiving his PhD in 1974. His research on T4-induced modifications of E. coli RNA polymerase was performed under the direction of James Watson and Walter Gilbert. After a post-doc at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where he studied the genetics and lineage of C. elegans, Horvitz accepted a position at MIT. He continued his research on C. elegans at MIT, and in 1986, identified two of the genes needed for programmed cell death to occur. His research also identified genes that regulate how dead cells are removed. In 2002, he, John E. Sulston, and Sydney Brenner received the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine for their work on the genetic regulation of organ development and cell death. In addition to his research on cell death, Horvitz believes in the importance of training scientists, stating in his Nobel Prize lecture, “Training has always been one of my major goals, with the belief that training outstanding scientists will of necessity generate outstanding science.” You can learn more about Horvitz and his achievements here and here.
May 13: On May 13, 2010, UCLA announced that a new life science building was to be named after Paul Tersaki, a renowned transplant scientist whose financial gift to UCLA totaled $50 million. Born in California in 1929, Terasaki and his family spent three years in internment camp in Arizona during World War II. After the war, the Terasaki family moved to Illinois, where Paul Tersaki finished high school and attended the University of Illinois. In 1948, he transferred to UCLA, where he earned three degrees in zoology (a bachelor’s in preventive medicine and public health, and a master’s and doctoral degree in zoology). Following graduation, he joined faculty in the Department of Surgery at UCLA and developed his research interest in transplant tolerance. In 1964, he developed the micro-cytotoxicity test, a tissue-typing test used on donors and recipients to identify human leukocyte antigens (HLA). In 1968, this test was adopted as standard practice in the United States, and in 1970, it was adopted as standard practice in the international community. He established the UCLA Tissue Typing Laboratory in 1969 and established the UCLA kidney registry in 1970. Terasaki also had a major role in setting the first United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) kidney allocation criteria. After retiring from UCLA in 1999, Terasaki founded the Terasaki Foundation, a research center studying cancer immunology. Terasaki died in January 2016, and you can read about his career here and here.
May 19: Nobel Prize winning biochemist Robert F. Furchgott, who received the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, died on May 19, 2009. Born in South Carolina in 1916, Furchgott received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina. In 1940, he received his PhD in biochemistry from Northwestern University. Following graduation, he first worked at Cornell University Medical College, Washington University School of Medicine, and SUNY Brooklyn. While at SUNY Brooklyn, he discovered that the ability of blood vessels to contract or expand disappeared if the endothelium were removed and discovered that nitric oxide was the substance that causes the expansion. This discovery led to the creation of new medications that treated heart and cardiovascular disease. In 1198, he received the Nobel Prize for this, along with Louis Ignarro and Ferid Murad. In addition to the Nobel Prize, Furchgott received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1996. You can learn more about his life here and here.
May 28: Dizhou Tong, also known as Ti Chou Tung, a Chinese embryologist, was born on May 28, 1902, in Zhejing Province, China. He received his PhD from Université Libre de Bruxelles in 1934. He worked as a researcher and professor in China, although the war disrupted his research. His research on cross-species cloning of fish made him the father of biological cloning in China. He and his colleagues generated the first cloned fish in the world in 1963; however, as the findings were published in Chinese, the international scientific world remained largely ignorant of the achievement for decades. He was a leader in experimental embryology in China for decades, and he introduced cellular nuclear transfer technology to China. During the Cultural Revolution, Tong worked as a janitor and field laborer but also continued his research on nuclear transplantation. Tong died in 1979, but you can learn more about him here and here.