Members of the National Academy of Medicine

Theodore_Puck

Theodore Thomas Puck (September 24, 1916 – November 6, 2005) was an American geneticist born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Chicago public schools and obtained his bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree from the University of Chicago. His PhD work was on the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom and his doctoral adviser was James Franck. During WW II Puck stayed at the University of Chicago. There he worked in the laboratory of Oswald H. Robertson on the study of how bacteria and viruses can spread through the air and on dust particles. After a postdoc position in the laboratory of Renato Dulbecco, Puck was recruited in 1948 to establish and chair the University of Colorado Medical School's department of biophysics. He retired from the University of Colorado Medical School in 1995 as professor emeritus, but continued to do laboratory work there until a few weeks before his death.Puck was an early pioneer of "somatic cell genetics" and single-cell plating ( i.e. "cloning" .) This work allowed the genetics of human and other mammalian cells to be studied in detail. Puck's key work ultimately made modern genetics, such as the human genome and other mammalian genome projects, possible. Dr. Puck with the assistance of Philip I. Marcus, successfully cloned a HeLa cell in 1955.
Puck made many basic discoveries in several areas. Confirming research done in 1956 by Joe Hin Tjio, Puck's team found that humans had 46 chromosomes rather than 48 which had earlier been believed. He developed the CHO cell line from Chinese hamster ovarian cells for this work and contributed to deeper insights into chromosomes and genetics of mammalian cells. Derived CHO cell lines became the most productive manufacturing approach for therapeutic proteins, resulting in hundreds of highly efficient drugs. Puck studied X-rays and cellular mutations. He also isolated and studied cellular mutations.
Puck has won a number of honors for his work most notably the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1958. In 1973 he was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University together with Renato Dulbecco and Harry Eagle. Dulbecco won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1975. Puck also founded the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute at the University of Denver, where he was an emeritus professor. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1960, Puck published more than 200 papers on topics including Alzheimer's disease and Down syndrome, and optimising radiotherapy dosages for the treatment of cancer.
He died following complications from a broken hip. Upon his death he was survived by his widow, three daughters, and seven grandchildren.

Clement_L._Markert

Clement Lawrence Markert (April 11, 1917 – October 1, 1999) was an American biologist credited with the discovery of isozymes (different forms of enzymes that catalyze the same reaction). He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and served as president of several biology societies.
Markert was born in Las Animas, Colorado and raised in Pueblo, Colorado. He attended the University of Colorado, and in 1937, left college to fight in the Spanish Civil War—stowing away aboard a freighter to circumvent government travel restrictions. After returning to college, Markert completed his bachelor's degree in 1940; upon graduation, he married Margaret Rempfer, and they moved to UCLA for graduate work. He enrolled in the United States Merchant Marine to take part in World War II; by 1954 they had three children. After the war, he finished a master's degree at UCLA followed by a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1948.Markert's Ph.D. research, and subsequent postdoctoral work at Caltech, focused on the sexuality and other physiological and genetic aspects of Glomerella, a genus of pathogenic plant fungi. At Caltech, he also worked with George Beadle on corn and Neurospora genetics.
In 1950 he began teaching at the University of Michigan, part of the new wave of what later became molecular biology. In 1954, Markert became a victim of McCarthyism; he was suspended from teaching because he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was later reinstated, and continued at the University of Michigan until moving to Johns Hopkins in 1957, followed by Yale University—as head of the Department of Biology. In 1966, he served as president of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. He remained at Yale until retiring in 1986 to North Carolina State University, where he continued researching until 1993.Early in his career, Markert developed the concept of isozymes based on electrophoresis and histochemical staining of enzymes. He found that often what had been assumed to be a single enzyme catalyzing a specific reaction was in fact multiple enzymes, with different proteins present in different tissues. In biochemistry, this forced a re-evaluation of some basic assumptions of enzyme kinetics; in genetics, it contributed to the shift from the "one gene-one enzyme hypothesis" to the "one gene-one polypeptide" concept. Markert's early work with isozymes, many of which are formed by gene duplication, was a precursor to the concept of gene families. Markert's later career focused on developmental biology, particularly developmental genetics in experiments with mosaic animals.Markert was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Zoology from 1963 to 1985. He also edited the Journal of Developmental Biology.In 1990, the University of Michigan created the annual "Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom" series, in honor of Markert and two other Michigan faculty suspended for refusing to testify in 1954.In 1992, it was reported in National Geographic that Markert was attempting an experiment to create a "superpig" by crossbreeding the extremely fertile Meishan pig with domestic pigs, speeding up the process by altering the genes of fertilized embryos. It was hoped that this would, within 5 years of beginning the program, create a hybrid that combined the fertility and early sexual maturation of the Meishan pig with the lean physique and quick growing times of domestic pigs.

Robert_A._Good

Robert Alan Good NAM, NAS, AAAS (May 21, 1922 – June 13, 2003) was an American physician who performed the first successful human bone marrow transplant between persons who were not identical twins. He is regarded as a founder of modern immunology.

Richard_L._Garwin

Richard Lawrence Garwin (born April 19, 1928) is an American physicist, best known as the author of the first hydrogen bomb design.In 1978, Garwin was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributing to the application of the latest scientific discoveries to innovative practical engineering applications contributing to national security and economic growth.

Harvey_Brooks_(physicist)

Harvey Brooks (August 5, 1915 – May 28, 2004) was an American physicist, "a pioneer in incorporating science into public policy",

notable for helping to shape national science policies and who served on science advisory committees in the administrations of Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

Brooks was also notable for his contributions to the fundamental theory of semiconductors and the band structure of metals.
Brooks was dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences of the Harvard University.Brooks was also the founder and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering "for technical contributions to solid-state engineering and nuclear reactors; leadership in national technological decisions".
He was also Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy at Harvard University.