The Golden Era of Immunology at the Rockefeller Institute

THE GOLDEN ERA OF IMMUNOLOGY AT THE ROCKEFELLER INSTITUTE* WALTHER F. GOEBELI I was greatly surprised when I learned that the Avery-Landsteiner prize for 1973 had been awarded to me. It is with a feeling of deep gratitude both to you, Professor Westphal and members of the Executive and Advisory Board of the Gesellschaft für Immunologie and the assembled immunological societies, and to those two men who had such great influence in orienting my scientific career, that I accept this distinguished honor. Word of the prize came to me on a Sunday evening last May when Professor Westphal and Dr. Schwick, as well as my old colleague and teacher Michael Heidelberger and his wife, were dining with us in New York. Suddenly Professor Westphal rose with a glass of wine in one hand and a letter addressed to me in the other. He asked if I would read it. Instead, I suggested he do so, and so I was told this happy news. That Dr. Oswald Avery, with whom I worked at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research from 1924 until 1944, and Dr. Karl Landsteiner , whom I knew well during his tenure there, were men of great scientific vision and achievement has been recognized by you in creating this generous prize. In the short time I have, I shall try to convey to you something of their infectious personalities, their scientific interests, and the role which they played in shaping research in the field of immunology during the three decades which covered their careers at the Rockefeller Institute in New York. I have always practiced amateur photography, and in my files I found photographs taken 45 years ago of Landsteiner in his laboratory (fig. 1) and Avery in his (fig. 2). The photographs are revealing, for here you see Landsteiner, the serious and forbidding Austrian scholar who, despite his severe exterior, was reserved, innerly warm, and at times insecure . His one great interest, outside of his laboratory, was his piano, for he was an excellent musician. And you see Avery, the whimsical, witty, often sarcastic, and lovable bachelor whose entire scientific life revolved»Speech delivered September 9, 1973, Strasbourg. tRockefeller University, New York, New York 10021. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Spring 1975 | 419 Fig. 1.—Dr. Karl Landsteiner Fig. 2.—Dr. Oswald T. Avery about the pneumococcus in his ill-equipped laboratory, and the extraordinary group of young men he attracted, stimulated, persuaded, and influenced in the pursuit of his scientific goals—the understanding of infection and resistance. In trying to comprehend the rich achievements of these two men, I must impress upon you that during the early years 1920 and 1930 there was not at their disposal the superb instrumentation which we have today. For example, pH was measured in a color comparator by means of dyes. Microanalysis was just beginning. There was no amino acid analyzer, nor did we have laboratory spectrophotometers. Methods for the separation of macromolecular substances were not yet developed. Column and paper chromatography were in their infancy, and apart from the continuous-separation centrifuge, there was no machine capable of spinning faster than 3,500 rpm. The discovery of antibiotics, too, which had such great influence in shaping the research to come, had not yet been made. Here I must quote from a book of essays by a distinguished American medical historian, Dr. Lester King: "Scientific medicine does not depend on gadgets or tests, or on sharply precise results; neither does it imply the capacity to cure the patient. It does require the ability to examine the data, to seek the connections between them, to find an explanation, and in all these processes, to apply critical acumen." From my personal association with the two men, this, I assure you, was the highly disciplined point of view of both. In 1922, at the age of 51, Landsteiner came from Holland to the Rockefeller Institute. In retrospect, his achievements were already legend and the pattern of his future scientific interests was well established . The 5 years following his graduation from medical school in Vienna in 1891 were spent in the laboratories of Arthur Hantsch, Eugene Bamberger, and Emil Fischer. Here he received...