The Blout Laboratory at Harvard Medical School from 1957 to 1972†
This article is dedicated to Elkan R. Blout whose teaching, mentoring and conviction that innovative thinking and application of principles will lead to greater understanding of proteins and their functions lives on in those of us who were fortunate to come into his orbit.
Abstract
Elkan R. Blout's laboratory at the Children's Cancer Research Foundation and Harvard Medical School pioneered many approaches to the synthesis, conformation and structural studies of polypeptides, biopolymers and selected proteins. Here the early days (1957–1972) of his research group are remembered. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Biopolymers 89: 336–337, 2008.
This article was originally published online as an accepted preprint. The “Published Online” date corresponds to the preprint version. You can request a copy of the preprint by emailing the Biopolymers editorial office at [email protected]
Elkan Blout was a multifaceted chemist, equally adept at directing innovative research as he was at managing it. Thus, in 1957, he was at the same time Vice President for Research at the Polaroid Corporation and Director of a research group at the Children's Cancer Research Foundation (also known as the Jimmy Fund), a part of Children's Hospital of Boston. The latter was a group devoted to basic research, mainly of peptides, polypeptides, their synthesis, and structures. Elkan oversaw the group lunchtimes, weekends, and evenings as an avocation until it became his sole focus in 1962, shortly before his whole group moved from the 3rd floor of the Jimmy Fund Building to the 4th floor of Building C-2 of the medical school. A heterogeneous mix of French, Canadian, Hungarian, German, Austrian, Russian, British (Hong Kong), Indian, Italian, and Japanese scientists (Elkan for a time was the only native-born American), we worked as well as socialized, together, as a tightly knit and mutually supportive group. Gerry Fasman was resident supervisor of the group when I joined it in 1957. In 1958 Gerry left for Brandeis University and I took over his role, remaining in that position for 14 years until July 1972. Thus I probably had one of the longest associations with Elkan and this research group.
In 1957, Elkan's group was still small (10–12), individualistic, international and, for the most part, tightly knit, occupying about 1/4th of a floor of the Jimmy Fund building, then four stories tall and better known as the Children's Cancer Research Foundation. Between the resident researchers, the many visiting scientists who came through the lab, and the rapid pace with which protein and polypeptide structural studies were proceeding, it was very stimulating environment and a heady time. The accomplishments of the group under Elkan's supervision and tutelage included many innovations, such as the biopolymers it designed and synthesized, its conformational analysis of these polymers, its pioneering work in analyzing and developing equations for predicting such structures using new techniques such as optical rotatory dispersion, its pioneering use of circular dichroism to study conformational changes and of infra red spectroscopy (coupled with use of D2O) to study peptide and hydrogen bonding. The lab had the first circular dichroism instruments in the U.S. one an American-made Cary, the other a Japanese Jasco, exciting in the innovations they permitted for the study of protein and biopolymer conformations, conformational changes, changes of state, etc. In addition to conformational studies of proteins and biopolymers, the lab used these instruments to pioneer an investigation of biopolymers as blood plasma expanders, a potential then of great interest since the risks of blood and plasma transfusions (e.g. HIV, hepatitis) for civilians as well as military personnel were just being realized.
With the move, there also came the opportunity for more interactions and collaborations, more visitors from abroad (including the then President of Israel, Ephraim Katchalski), and supervision of postdoctoral fellows, graduate students from the Biochemistry or Biophysics departments, medical students doing a 4th year research thesis and some lecturing to medical students. During my 14 years there, more than 50 visiting scientists, postdoctoral fellows and students worked in the labs for from 1 month to 4 years. The large number of their publications with Elkan, and the careers they developed, demonstrate their productivity. Many of the graduate students and postdoctoral fellows went on to great achievements and highly laudable careers, a testament to the training they received from Elkan in innovative research. Readers will recognize their names on the list (appended) of those who passed through the lab between 1957 and 1972. It includes the three editors of this special edition of Biopolymers, a journal Elkan helped to found: Barbara Brodsky, Charles Deber, and Lila Gierasch, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude for shepherding the manuscripts it includes.
Looking back 35 years after leaving the group, I am grateful for all that I learned and for the opportunities Elkan and those he attracted around him offered, personally and professionally. They were a group of wonderful people!
