I was born on December 1, 1925 in Baltimore, Maryland where
I attended public schools and graduated from the accelerated course at Baltimore
City College, a public high school of special note because it took selected
students from around the city. An all boys school, it resembled a private college
preparatory school in both its scholastic standards and by giving sufficient
college courses to qualify after graduation to enter the second year of a university.
Special attention was given to
languages (Latin, Greek, German, French); the
sciences were understated. In fact, the only class in chemistry was given by
a teacher who seemed to know Lavoisier personally since he was given the highest
status in that course. As a result, my interests tended toward languages, especially
French, which greatly influenced my direction when I entered Johns Hopkins University
in 1943. On the other hand, I had acquired a great interest in chemistry despite
the high school teacher. That interest was acquired through a special boyhood
friendship with two individuals from my neighborhood. We were gifted students,
highly competitive, and interested in math and chemistry. The three of us shared
these interests throughout our boyhood and were together from elementary school
to Johns Hopkins. We separated during the war when each of us went into different
wartime situations. I was drafted into the Navy, the other two stayed at universities
under the auspices of Uncle Sam, the expression used for those taken in the
armed services.
I happily went into the armed services from Hopkins. I was bored with the courses
given during wartime; most of the young, enthusiastic teachers had left for
the services. More importantly for me, most of my friends had gone to war. As
a Jew, fighting Hitler was the highest priority. However, in the Navy I spent
most of the son masturbation Autobiography Rodbell anti mother - Martin time in the South Pacific where the fighting was with the Japanese.
I was a radio operator attached to the Marine Corps until I contracted malaria
in the jungles of the Philippines. After recovering, I practiced my profession
on several ships and traveled, as a result, to Korea and China. I mention this
aspect of my life because my interactions with so many different types of people
under trying conditions provided me with a healthy respect for the human condition.
In fact, this experience buttressed the wonderful childhood atmosphere that
I experienced in my home and in my neighborhood where my father's grocery store
served as a focal point for contact between people in the area. I believe all
of these experiences conditioned me for the life I have led as a scientist.
When I returned from the war and re-entered Johns Hopkins, I was again attracted
to French literature and became an avid reader of contemporary French writers,
particularly Gide and those promoting the existentialist philosophy. My father
was interested in my going to medical school. Pre-medical school was not at
all interesting to me in part because of the intense competition among students
for obtaining the highest grades, so necessary at the time to enter medical
school. The turning point for me was a small class given by James Ebert, then
a graduate student in the Biology department. Lengthy discourses on science
philosophy and his deep interest and knowledge of embryology along with his
enthusiasm for biology in general probably were the principal inducements for
me to consider a career in the biological sciences. Moreover, the Biology department
was filled with great professors like Bentley Glass and Vincent Dethier. When
graduation time came, I went to Dr. Glass for advice. He told me to enter the
field of Biochemistry. Not having taken advanced chemistry courses, I spent
an extra year taking every advanced course in chemistry available at Hopkins.
I knew at the end of that year that science was my forte.
I met my future wife, Barbara Ledermann, in 1949. She had come to America from
Holland where she survived the war in the Dutch underground. Her sister and
parents disappeared in the ovens of Auschwitz. During the war she learned photography
and maintained her training as a ballet dancer. She had come to Baltimore and
by chance was given a part in Moliere's "School for Wives" in a production by
the Johns Hopkins "Barnstormers". In a short time she had acquired a number
of friends interested in theater, art, and music. I had never met so many interesting
people. Given my proclivity for literature and my somewhat limited experience
in classical piano, the scene that unfolded was overwhelming. I knew she would
be the perfect companion. We married in 1950. Not only had I entered the world
of Science, my life now became intensely immersed in the Arts.
Having disappointed my father with my choice to become a scientist I gave him
another shock by departing with Barbara for the U. of Washington in Seattle.
Hans Neurath had just taken the chair of Biochemistry. The department was young
with only a few graduate students and youthful professors (Ed Krebs, Don Hanahan,
Frank Huennekens, among others). I chose Hanahan as my thesis advisor and became
immersed in lipid chemistry, particularly in the metabolism of phospholipids.
I learned from Hanahan how to assay for the actions of phospholipases in ether
solution. Not realized at the time, my life as a biochemist was to be immersed
in membranes. My thesis concerned the biosynthesis of lecithin in the rat liver.
Unfortunately for me, Eugene Kennedy was working on the same subject and succeeded
in demonstrating that CTP rather than ATP is responsible for the biosynthetic
pathway. That experience taught me a good lesson; never rely on the purity of
biological chemicals, as I had done. That lesson helped greatly in the later
discovery of the role of GTP in signal transduction.
I received my Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1954. We immediately left Seattle for
Urbana, Illinois where I became a post-doctoral fellow under Dr. Herbert E.
Carter, then chairman of the department of Chemistry at the U. of Illinois.
It was a wonderful place to be at that time, not only because of the great chemists
in the department but also because the department of Microbiology had such notables
as Gunsalus, Luria and Spiegelman who enlivened seminars with their egocentric
views and vivid arguments about everything. I took on the research problem of
the biosynthesis of chloramphenicol, an antibiotic of note that interested Dr.
Carter. The molecule contained a nitro group appended to its benzene ring and
two chlorides in the aliphatic side chain. My interest was how inorganic chloride
was taken up into the side chain. I had some good ideas toward the second and
final year after spending a great deal of effort trying to crush the mycelia
into cell-free extracts. Finally it came down to the understanding that chloride
was taken up into an activated (radical?)
carbon at the two position of acetylacetate
derived from the metabolism of phenylalanine! That problem was ultimately solved.
The challenge was exciting, it was time to move on. Dr. Carter asked me at what
university would I wish to teach. I replied: none. I had experienced teaching
his lecture courses for the first year students: few of the students passed
my exams. Devastated I decided never to teach. I chose research as my metier.
Dr. Anfinsen at the National Heart Institute accepted me for a position in his
laboratory to work on "clearing factor". ВАО электродвигатель Rodbell Взрывозащищенный - Martin Autobiography тюнинг Martin - Autobiography Rodbell Niva Chevrolet Lanos внешний By Martin Rodbell in panties Autobiography - preteens the time Autobiography Rodbell zoopicsporno Martin - I Martin Autobiography - Rodbell zoopicsporno arrived, Dr. Edward Korn
(an old and dear friend at NIH) had established clearing factor as lipoprotein
lipase, an enzyme that hydrolyzed the triglycerides in chylomicrons, the principle
form of fat circulating in the bloodstream. Using emulsions of coconut oil as
substrate, the enzyme required the presence of serum lipoproteins. My interest
was to discern the nature of the lipoproteins on the surface of chylomicrons.
Fortunately for me, Dr. Donald Frederickson and other scientists in the Heart
Institute had extensive experience with serum lipoproteins; he and scientists
at the Rockefeller Institute in New York supplied me with copious quantities
of human chylomicrons. Using a newly developed "fingerprinting" method I established
that at least five different proteins (designated alphabetically as A,B,C..etc)
were present. Years later these five proteins proved to have very significant
roles in diseases involving lipoproteins. For me, this was a fine exercise in
protein chemistry that I had gained from Neurath's department combined with
my invaluable experience with phospholipids.
In 1960 I reached the conclusion that I wanted to return to my initial interest
in cell biology: embryology. Fortunately I was granted a fellowship in Professor
Jean Brachet's department at the Free University of Brussels. A delightful man
of great erudition and wit, Brachet was my perfect opening into the culture
of Europe. I learned many new techniques; especially useful was an ultrathin
x-ray film process to record localization of tritium-labeled molecules in cells.
My family, meanwhile, lived in the Hague, enjoying the remaining family of Barbara:
the Citroens of which Paul Citroen was a great Dutch painter. Traveling to and
fro by train between Brussels and the Hague proved too much after 6 months.
Luckily I found a suitable laboratory in Leiden, headed by Dr. Peter Gaillard,
a pioneer in the techniques of cell culturing. In that lab I acquired expert
training in the use of cultured heart cells for discerning the uptake of tritium-labeled
chylomicrons. The year in Belgium and Holland, however, proved to be most important
because of the cultural impact of European civilization on my life. I have been
wedded to Europe since then.
On returning to the States I found myself in the Institute of Arthritis and
Metabolic Diseases headed by DeWitt Stetten who gave me a position in the Laboratory
of Nutrition and Endocrinology. With my experience in cell culturing, I became
interested in discerning whether lipoprotein lipase was synthesized and released
from fat cells. Korn had already established that the enzyme was present in
adipose tissue. After months of trying several means of disrupting adipose tissue,
I discovered that collagenase (actually an impure preparation containing many
proteases) rapidly digested the tissue
matrix, releasing the fat cells. Since
fat cells floated to the surface of the incubation medium, it proved a simple
matter to separate and purify these cells from the mostly vascular cells in
adipose tissue. Little did I realize that this simple procedure was to change
the course of research and the rest of my scientific career!
Dr. Bernardo Houssay, the great physiologist and Nobelist from Argentina was
visiting the laboratory (one of his post-doctoral students was Robert Scow,
section head of my lab) and learned of my feat. However, he questioned whether
the cells were metabolically viable and said I must demonstrate to him that
the cells were susceptible to insulin action. A few days later I showed him
the results of insulin action on glucose utilization. He was ecstatic and proclaimed
that this would be a landmark in the history of endocrinology. I was nonplussed
but heartened by his enthusiasm. Insulin action, particularly its site of action
on the cell, became a driving force. Testing the effects of my old favorites,
phospholipases, I found that they mimicked the effects of the hormone on glucose
utilization and protein synthesis. I had considered their actions to be restricted
to the surface membrane. These results suggested that insulin may act by stimulating
phospholipases thereby altering the structure of the surface membrane. As importantly,
these data provided indirect evidence that the insulin receptor is located on
the surface of fat cells. Prompted by teachings of Dr. Robert Williams of the
department of Medicine at the U. of Washington, I decided to pursue this research
by gently removing the fat from the cell while retaining many of the structural
and metabolic aspects of the cell. This preparation I termed fat cell "ghosts".
Importantly, they were responsive to a variety of hormones in terms of their
actions on glucose utilization.
In the mid-sixties, Earl Sutherland gave a lecture on his "second-messenger"
theory of hormone action in which cyclic AMP was demonstrated to be a product
of the actions of a variety of hormones on adenyl (adenylate, adenylyl) cyclase.
I believe his lecture had a great impact on a number of us at NIH. Certainly,
it caused me to turn to the "cyclic AMP" paradigm.
Until that time I worked
in the lab with Ann Butler Jones as technician. In 1967, just prior to embarking
on a sabbatical in Geneva, we were joined by Lutz Birnbaumer. He proved to be
a prime source for the next two years of the important information that led
ultimately to the concept of transducers and the principles of signal transduction
that I projected in lectures and in writings. News of our investigations rapidly
spread. When I returned from Geneva, Michiel Krans and Stephen L. Pohl joined
in our efforts with fat cell ghosts and later with rat liver membranes.
Meanwhile I had been asked by Albert E. Renold, a great endocrinologist and
a noble man, to take over his Institut de Biochimie Clinique in Geneva while
he was going on sabbatical in the laboratory of Robert Williams. That was the
beginning of my long love affair with the city of Geneva and my many friends
and colleagues there. Later I was to be Professor in the Laboratory of Biochemistry
at the University (1981-83) where I carried out research on the structure/function
of glucagon. During the period 1967-68, I carried out very interesting research
on the effects of hormones on ion and amino acid translocations in fat cell
ghosts with Torben Clausen who was serving a post-doctoral period from the U.
of Aarhus in Denmark. We both learned from that experience that hormones originally
thought to act monotheistically actually are pleiotropic agents; i.e., they
can do many different things by separate routes. Certainly in my mind, endocrinology
was no longer just a science; it was imbued with existentialism!
There is no point in recounting the story of the discovery of the role of GTP
and magnesium ions in hormone action. That story evolved in our lab with many
contributors over the past two decades of harmonious and exciting times. Looking
back it was a period in which my life experiences had kaleidoscoped into a wonderful
sense of creativity shared with not only my immediate colleagues but with scientists
from all over the world. My life as a scientist has been joyful in large part
because of my wife and our four children (Paul, Suzanne, Andrew, and Phillip)
who succored me during those long days and
nights of intense thought and often
of frustration when ideas were scarce. In many respects, my career and my experiences
with people and events have been seamless in that I cannot separate one from
another. Without doubt, the thread of one's life should be within the matrix
of the total human experience.
From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1994, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1995
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
 
Martin Rodbell died on December 7, 1998.
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