George Wald

George Wald
George Wald in 1987
Born George David Wald
(1906-11-18)November 18, 1906
New York City, U.S.
Died April 12, 1997(1997-04-12) (aged 90)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Nationality American
Alma mater New York University
Columbia University
Known for Pigments in the retina
Spouse(s) Frances Kingsley (m. 1931; div. ?)
Ruth Hubbard (m. 1958)
Children 4
Awards Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry (1939)
Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1953)
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1967)
Scientific career
Fields Neurobiology
Institutions Harvard University

George David Wald (November 18, 1906 – April 12, 1997) was an American scientist who studied pigments in the retina. He won a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit.[1]

Research

Wald plotted the absorbance of rod pigment (black curve), then later the absorbance of cone pigments (red, green, and blue curves)

As a postdoctoral researcher, Wald discovered that vitamin A was a component of the retina. His further experiments showed that when the pigment rhodopsin was exposed to light, it yielded the protein opsin and a compound containing vitamin A. This suggested that vitamin A was essential in retinal function.

In the 1950s, Wald and his colleagues used chemical methods to extract pigments from the retina. Then, using a spectrophotometer, they were able to measure the light absorbance of the pigments. Since the absorbance of light by retina pigments corresponds to the wavelengths that best activate photoreceptor cells, this experiment showed the wavelengths that the eye could best detect. However, since rod cells make up most of the retina, what Wald and his colleagues were specifically measuring was the absorbance of rhodopsin, the main photopigment in rods. Later, with a technique called microspectrophotometry, he was able to measure the absorbance directly from cells, rather than from an extract of the pigments. This allowed Wald to determine the absorbance of pigments in the cone cells (Goldstein, 2001).

Biography

George Wald with wife Ruth Hubbard in 1967

George Wald was born in New York City, the son of Ernestine (Rosenmann) and Isaac Wald, Jewish immigrant parents. He was a member of the first graduating class of the Brooklyn Technical High School in New York in 1922. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from New York University in 1927 and his PhD in zoology from Columbia University in 1932. After graduating, he received a travel grant from the US National Research Council. Wald used this grant to work in Germany with Otto Heinrich Warburg where he identified vitamin A in the retina. Wald then went on to work in Zurich, Switzerland with the discoverer of vitamin A, Paul Karrer. Wald then worked briefly with Otto Fritz Meyerhof in Heidelberg, Germany, but left Europe for the University of Chicago in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came to power and life in Europe became more dangerous for Jews. In 1934, Wald went to Harvard University where he became an instructor, then a professor.

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1950 and in 1967 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries in vision. In 1966 he was awarded the Frederic Ives Medal by the OSA and in 1967 the Paul Karrer Gold Medal of the University of Zurich.[2]

Wald spoke out on many political and social issues and his fame as a Nobel laureate brought national and international attention to his views. He was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race. Speaking at MIT in 1969 Wald bemoaned that "Our government has become preoccupied with death, with the business of killing and being killed."[3] In 1970, Wald predicted that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”[4] In 1980, Wald served as part of Ramsey Clark's delegation to Iran during the Iran hostage crisis.

With a small number of other Nobel laureates, he was invited in 1986 to fly to Moscow to advise Mikhail Gorbachev on a number of environmental questions. While there, he questioned Gorbachev about the arrest, detention and exile to Gorki of Yelena Bonner and her husband, fellow Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov (Peace, 1975). Wald reported that Gorbachev said he knew nothing about it. Bonner and Sakharov were released shortly thereafter, in December 1986.

Wald died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was married twice: in 1931 to Frances Kingsley and in 1958 to the biochemist Ruth Hubbard. He had two sons with Kingsley—Michael and David; he and Hubbard had a son—the award-winning musicologist and musician Elijah Wald—and a daughter, Deborah, a prominent family law attorney. He was an atheist.[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Nobel Foundation. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1967". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
  2. ↑ "List of Recipients". University of Zurich. Archived from the original on July 21, 2015. Retrieved December 5, 2015.
  3. ↑ Norman Solomon (September 6, 2010) A Speech for Endless War. zcommunications.org
  4. ↑ Mark J. Perry (April 21, 2015) 18 spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year. aei.org
  5. ↑ Donald E. Johnson (2010). Programming of Life. Big Mac Publishers. p. 123. ISBN 9780982355466. Biologist George Wald dismissed anything besides physicalism with, "I will not believe that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible: spontaneous generation arising to evolution.

Further reading

  • Goldstein, B. 2001. Sensation and Perception, 6th ed. London: Wadsworth.
  • Dowling, John E (December 2002). "George Wald, 18 November 1906 – 12 April 1997". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. United States. 146 (4): 431–9. ISSN 0003-049X. PMID 12619664.
  • Hubbard, R; Wald E (1999). "George Wald memorial talk". Novartis Found. Symp. England. 224: 5–18, discussion 18–20. ISSN 1528-2511. PMID 10614043.
  • Raju, T N (August 1999). "The Nobel Chronicles. 1967: George Wald (1906–97); Ragnar A Granit (1900–91); and Haldan Keffer Hartline (1903–83)". Lancet. England. 354 (9178): 605. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)77968-X. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 10470741.
  • Jukes, T H (July 1997). "George Wald believed in apocalypse now". Nature. England. 388 (6637): 13. Bibcode:1997Natur.388S..13.. doi:10.1038/40251. PMID 9214489.
  • Dowling, J E (May 1997). "George Wald (1906–97)". Nature. England. 387 (6631): 356. Bibcode:1997Natur.387..356D. doi:10.1038/387356a0. PMID 9163416.
  • "Nutrition classics. The Journal of General Physiology, Volume eighteenth 1935: Vitamin A in eye tissues. By George Wald". Nutr. Rev. United States. 43 (8): 244–6. August 1985. ISSN 0029-6643. PMID 3900823.
  • Dowling, J E; Wald G (March 1981). "Nutrition classics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume 46, 1960: The biological function of vitamin A acid: John E. Dowling and George Wald". Nutr. Rev. United States. 39 (3): 134–8. ISSN 0029-6643. PMID 7027100.
  • Sulek, K (July 1969). "Nobel prize for George Wald, Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragner Granit in 1967 for discoveries concerning the primary biochemical and physiological phenomena occurring in the process of vision". Wiad. Lek. Poland. 22 (13): 1258–9. ISSN 0043-5147. PMID 4897321.
  • Bouman, M A (January 1968). "Ragnar Garnit, Haldan Keffer Hartline, George Wald, winners of the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine". Nederlands tijdschrift voor geneeskunde. Netherlands. 112 (1): 23–5. ISSN 0028-2162. PMID 4875782.
  • Mikulski, T; Zaki El-Sabban, M.; Zwolinski, Bruno J. (1968). "Noble laureate prize in the field of medicine for 1967: G. Wald, R. Granit, and H. K. Hartline". Postepy Biochem. Poland. 14 (3): 473. Bibcode:1968MolPh..14..473K. doi:10.1080/00268976800100591. ISSN 0032-5422. PMID 4879756.
  • Dolwing, J E; Ratliff F (October 1967). "Nobel prize: 3 named for medicine, physiology award (George Wald, Ragnar Granit and Haldan Keffer Hartline)". Science. United States. 158 (3800): 468–73. Bibcode:1967Sci...158..468D. doi:10.1126/science.158.3800.468. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 4860394.
  • "George Wald". Am. J. Ophthalmol. 40 (5 Part 2): 4–7. November 1955. ISSN 0002-9394. PMID 13268547.

Two of George Wald's speeches can be read on-line:

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