APS Member History

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1	Name:	Dr. Walter M. Fitch
	Institution:	University of California, Irvine
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1929
	Death Date:	March 10, 2011

	Walter Fitch received a Ph.D. in comparative biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 1958. He was a professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, Madison for twenty-four years before moving to the University of California, Irvine in 1986, where he was Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. Walter Fitch may be considered the founder of the now widespread discipline of molecular phylogenetics. He developed a method for reconstructing phylogeny based on amino acid sequences and applied it first to the cytochrome c's of 20 species in one of the most cited papers in the field of molecular evolution (Science, 1967). He developed additional methods for phylogeny reconstruction, including parsimony, the most widely used (Systematic Zoology, 1971). Fitch's contributions in molecular evolution have contributed to settle issues such as the phylogeny of South American Indian tribes, the rate of evolution of mice strains, and albumin evolution in reptiles. He pioneered the theory of the molecular evolutionary clock. Most recently, he moved evolutionary theory from reconstructing the past to predicting the future. In a series of papers analyzing the pattern of evolution of the influenza virus, his method has correctly predicted in nine out of eleven years the strain that would predominantly infect the human population in the following season, a significant finding in developing vaccines. Dr. Fitch was the founder of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, and served as editor-in-chief from 1983-93. He had also served on the editorial board of Systematic Zoology, Journal of Molecular Evolution, and Genomics, and was on the advisory board of Biochemical Genetics since 1966. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Human Genome Organization, and a foreign member of the Linnean Society. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000. Walter Fitch died on March 10, 2011, at the age of 81 in Irvine, California.

2	Name:	Dr. Leroy Hood
	Institution:	Phenome Health; Institute for Systems Biology
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1938

	Leroy E. Hood is the President and Director of the Institute for Systems Biology, a not-for-profit institution he recently established. He has helped start more than half a dozen companies, including Amgen, the largest biotech company, and Applied Biosystems, the leading maker of genetic analysis equipment. He received an M.D. at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1964 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry at California Institute of Technology in 1968. A member of the faculty of the California Institute of Technology for twenty-two years, he was also director of the Cancer Center, 1981-90, and director of the NSF Science and Technology Center for Molecular Biotechnolgy, 1989-92. From 1992-2000 he was the Director of the NSF Science and Technology Center for Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Washington, as well as William Gates III Professor and Chairman of the Department of Molecular Biotechnology, professor in the Departments of Bioengineering and Immunology, and an adjunct professor in the Departments of Medicine and Computer Science. Leroy Hood played a central role in deciphering the mechanisms of immunological diversity by being among the first to clone and characterize genes encoding antibodies, genes of the major histocompatibility complex, and T-cell receptors. His laboratory also developed four instruments widely used to synthesize and sequence genes and proteins. Dr. Hood also played a pioneering role in the Human Genome Project and co-edited The Code of Codes, covering the scientific, legal, and ethical aspects of the Human Genome Project. Dr. Hood initiated major programs for bringing hands-on, inquiry-based science to all levels of teachers in Seattle. Dr. Hood is the recipient of many awards, including the Louis Pasteur Award, Dickson Prize, Lasker Award, Rabbi Shai Shacknai Memorial Prize of Hebrew University, the American College of Physicians Award, the NAE's Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, and the National Medal of Science (2012). In January 2017 he was awarded the National Academy of Sciences' Award for Chemistry in Service to Society. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts & Sciences and was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000.

3	Name:	Lord John Richard Krebs
	Institution:	University of Oxford & Pembroke College & UK Food Standards Agency
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	205. Microbiology
	Residency:	International
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1945

	Sir John Krebs received a D.Phil at the University of Oxford in 1970. He has held faculty positions at the Institute of Animal Resource Ecology at the University of British Columbia and the University College of North Wales and was S.R.C. Research Officer of the Animal Behavior Research Group and University Lecturer at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at the University of Oxford. Formerly a fellow of Wolfson College, he was an Official Fellow at Pembroke College from 1988 to 2005. Sir John has also served as director of the AFRC Unit of Ecology and Behavior (1989-94), director of the NERC Unit of Behavioural Ecology (1989-94), chief executive officer of the Natural Environment Research Council (1994-99) and chairman of the UK Food Standards Agency (2000-05). He is currently serving as the Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Oxford, a position he has held since 1988. Since October 2005, he has been the Principal of Jesus College, Oxford. For thirty years, Sir John Krebs has been a leading researcher in applying quantitative methods to the functions of animal behavior, especially birds. His elegant studies of territoriality and the use of living space, the behavioral mechanisms involved, including birdsong, and the application of economic concepts to the use of food resources were seminal in establishing the new discipline of behavioral ecology. He co-edited the leading advanced textbook for training behavioral ecologists throughout the world. Sir John Krebs has been honoured by the Zoological Society with the scientific Medal in 1981 and the Frink Medal in 1997, by the Linnaean Society with the Bicentenary Medal in 1983 and by the American Ornithologists' Union with the Elliott Coues Award in 1999. He was awarded the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour Medal in 2000 and the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health's Benjamin Ward Richardson Gold Medal in 2002. He received a Knighthood for services to Behavioural Ecology in 1999. He is a member of the Royal Society, Max Planck Society, Academia Europaea, British Ecological Society and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He has served as president of the International Society of Behavioural Ecology and the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000 and of the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, and was made Honorary Fellow of the German Ornithologists' Society in 2003.

4	Name:	Dr. Estella Bergere Leopold
	Institution:	University of Washington
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	205. Microbiology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1927

	Estella Leopold received her Ph.D. at Yale University in 1955. She was a research botanist for the U.S. Geological Survey from 1955-76, while also serving as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado from 1967-76. In 1976 she moved to the University of Washington, where she was Director of the Quaternary Research Center until 1982, professor of botany and forest resources, 1976-89, and professor of botany and environmental studies, 1989-95. Dr. Leopold is currently Professor Emeritus of Botany and Adjunct Professor of Geological Sciences. She is a recipient of the Conservationist-of-the-Year Award from the Colorado Wildlife Federation, and the Wilbur Cross Medal from Yale University. She has served on many committees for the National Academy of Sciences, including the paleoanthropology delegation to China in 1975, and has served on the board of the Environmental Defense Fund and the National Audubon Society. She was president of the American Quaternary Association from 1982-84 and is past president and board chair of the Aldo Leopold Foundation. As one of the world's outstanding paleobotanists, Estella Leopold became the first botanist to identify from pollen the North American floras that existed in the Tertiary Period. In her 100 publications Dr. Leopold has concentrated on paleoclimate and evolution of modern forest types. Tracing evolutionary and extinction rates, she discovered that regional floral change has been closely linked with mountain building and volcanism. She established that grassy savanna co-evolved with large, hooved ungulates during the Miocene cooling. At Eniwetok, using fossil pollen from deep-sea cores, Dr. Leopold established proof of Darwin's concept that atolls evolved from sinking volcanoes. She is an active conservationist. Dr. Leopold was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000. Her most recent book, Saved in Time, was published in 2012. In 2010 she won the Cosmos Prize from the Japan’s Expo ’90 Foundation.

5	Name:	Dr. Sharon R. Long
	Institution:	Stanford University
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	209. Neurobiology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1951

	Sharon Long has been responsible for elucidating many of the early reactions involved in the establishment of nitrogen-fixing nodules of leguminous plants. She has also described the genetic systems of the plants and bacteria involved in this infection process and has developed ingenious genetic and biochemical techniques for study of the nodulation of legumes. Her exceptional competence ranges from the most intricate details of plant and microbial molecular, genetic, cellular and developmental biology to large-scale concerns with science and society. Dr. Long has played an active role in the Plant Biology Section of the National Academy of Sciences, and she has served as Chair of the Biological Sciences Class of the Academy. An admirable teacher and communicator, Dr. Long is presently Professor of Biology at Stanford University, where she has taught since 1981. From 2001 to 2007 she served as the Dean of the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences and in 2008 she was recognized as one of the five science advisors to the Obama campaign. She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University (1979) and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1993); the American Academy of Microbiology (1993); and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1994).

6	Name:	Dr. Hubert S. Markl
	Institution:	University of Konstanz; Max Planck Society
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	210. Behavioral Biology, Psychology, Ethology, and Animal Behavior
	Residency:	International
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1938
	Death Date:	January 8, 2015

	Hubert Markl was one of the most influential contemporary German scholars. After a research career in which he discovered the physiological basis of the gravity sense in bees and ants and pioneered the study of sound communication of these insects, he went on to a very distinguished career as the top administrator in German science, first as president of the German Science Foundation and later as the president of the Max-Planck Gesellschaft. He contributed broadly in the sciences, philosophy and education, as evidenced by his membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1985); the German Academy of Natural Sciences, Leopoldina, Halle (1985); the Academia Europaea (1988); and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences (1993). He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000. Hubert Markl died January 8, 2015, at the age of 76, in Konstanz, Germany.

7	Name:	Dr. Erling Norrby
	Institution:	Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences & Karolinska Institute; J. Craig Venter Institute
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	209. Neurobiology
	Residency:	International
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1937

	Erling Norrby is Professor at the Karolinska Institute and Secretary General of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He received an M.D. in 1963, Ph.D. in 1964, and Docent of Medicine in 1964 from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm. He served as chairman of the Department of Virology from 1972-1990 and Dean of Medical Faculty from 1990-97 at the Karolinska Institute. Erling Norrby has achieved a high level of accomplishment and recognition for academic research in viruses and diseases and as a leader in science and medicine. His laboratory career focused on viruses and immunopathogenesis, with particularly important contributions to the Paramyxoviruses (measles, atypical measles, SSPE) and to the retroviruses causing AIDS in man (HIV) and animals (SIV). He is the recipient of several awards, including the Career Award of the Swedish Cancer Society, 1966-72 and the Fernström Prize, 1981. He has served on the World Health Organization's Expert Advisory Committee since 1975. And served the Nobel Committee in various capacities, from 1975 to 1993. Dr. Norrby has been a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences since 1981 and the Academia Europea since 1998. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2000.

8	Name:	Dr. David D. Sabatini
	Institution:	New York University School of Medicine
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	202. Cellular and Developmental Biology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1931

	David D. Sabatini was born in Argentina, where he earned his medical degree from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral in 1954. Obtaining a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 1960, Dr. Sabatini undertook postdoctoral training first at the Yale University School of Medicine and later at Rockefeller University. While at Yale, he introduced the glutaraldehyde fixation procedure for the preservation of subcellular structures, which revolutionized the field of biological electron microscopy by permitting cytochemical studies at the electron microscope level. In 1966, he received his Ph.D. from Rockefeller, where he remained as a faculty member in the Laboratory of Cell Biology. In 1972, Dr. Sabatini became Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at the New York University School of Medicine, where he continued to investigate protein trafficking mechanisms, extending his work from the functions of the endoplasmic reticulum to the role of the Golgi apparatus in organelle and plasma membrane biogenesis. At New York University, he and his associates developed a system of cultured polarized kidney-derived epithelial cells (MDCK) which now serves as a common paradigm for studying the physiological properties of transporting epithelia. Using this system, they also discovered the polarized budding of enveloped viruses from epithelial cells. These studies provided the preeminent model currently used to investigate membrane protein sorting and plasma membrane biogenesis in epithelial cells. His current scientific interests continue to lie in the areas of protein traffic and membrane organelle biogenesis. David Sabatini has written more than 120 scientific publications and is the recipient of several scientific and teaching awards, including the Mayor's Award for Excellence in Science and Technology (2000) and New York University's Alpha Omega Alpha Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teacher Award (2000). In 2014 he won the NAS Award in Molecular Biology. He became Frederick L. Ehrman Professor Emeritus of Cell Biology at New York University School of Medicine in 2016. Dr. Sabatini was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2000.

9	Name:	Dr. James C. Thompson
	Institution:	University of Texas Medical Branch
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	204. Medicine, Surgery, Pathology and Immunology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1928
	Death Date:	May 9, 2008

10	Name:	Dr. Shirley M. Tilghman
	Institution:	Princeton University
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	202. Cellular and Developmental Biology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1946

	Shirley M. Tilghman was elected Princeton University's 19th president on May 5, 2001, and assumed office on June 15, 2001. She became President Emerita in 2013. An exceptional teacher and a world-renowned scholar and leader in the field of molecular biology, she served on the Princeton faculty for 15 years before being named president. She continues now as Professor of Molecular Biology and Public Affairs. A native of Canada, Dr. Tilghman received her Honors B.Sc. in chemistry from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in 1968. After two years of secondary school teaching in Sierra Leone, West Africa, she obtained her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Temple University in Philadelphia. During postdoctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health, she made a number of groundbreaking discoveries while participating in cloning the first mammalian gene, and she continued to make scientific breakthroughs as an independent investigator at the Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia and as an adjunct associate professor of human genetics and biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Tilghman came to Princeton in 1986 as the Howard A. Prior Professor of the Life Sciences. Two years later, she also joined the Howard Hughes Medical Institute as an investigator. In 1998, she took on additional responsibilities as the founding director of Princeton's multi-disciplinary Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics. A member of the National Research Council's committee that set the blueprint for the U.S. effort in the Human Genome Project, Dr. Tilghman also was one of the founding members of the National Advisory Council of the Human Genome Project Initiative for the National Institutes of Health. She is renowned not only for her pioneering research but for her national leadership on behalf of women in science and for promoting efforts to make the early careers of young scientists as meaningful and productive as possible. Dr. Tilghman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the Royal Society of London. Her awards include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for Developmental Biology, the Genetics Society of America Medal, and the L'Oreal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science. In 2014 she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. She serves as a trustee of the Jackson Laboratory and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; as a director of Google, Inc.; and, beginning in October 2008, as chair of the Association of American Universities. In 2008 she was named to the board of trustees of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000.

11	Name:	Dr. Robert A. Weinberg
	Institution:	Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research & Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	207. Genetics
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1942

	Robert Weinberg's research has focused on the molecular origins of human cancer. His work in 1979 demonstrated for the first time that tumor cells arising in mice treated with chemical carcinogens carry distinct genes - sometimes termed oncogenes - that are responsible for driving the malignant growth of these cells. This work was soon shown by his own lab and others to be applicable to human cancers as well. In 1983, his group demonstrated that the transformation of a normal cell into a tumor cell depends upon several distinct genetic changes occurring in these cells. In 1986, his group was responsible for isolating a second type of cancer-causing gene, termed a tumor suppressor gene, which in normal cells acts to prevent cancerous growth and which is inactivated in tumor cells. More recently, his group demonstrated that a third type of gene, termed telomerase, plays an equivalently important role in cancer formation. Thus, by introducing three distinct types of genetic changes into normal human cells, involving an oncogene, two tumor suppressor genes, and telomerase, his group was able for the first time to convert normal human cells into tumor-forming cells. This research establishes the genetic bases of human cancer formation. A member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research since 1982, Dr. Weinberg is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1969) and has served on the M.I.T. faculty since 1972. Winner of the 1997 National Medal of Science, he was elected to the membership of the National Academy of Sciences in 1985 and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1989. He won the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in 2013.

12	Name:	Dr. Jean D. Wilson
	Institution:	University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
	Year Elected:	2000
	Class:	2. Biological Sciences
	Subdivision:	204. Medicine, Surgery, Pathology and Immunology
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1932
	Death Date:	June 13, 2021

	Jean Wilson received an M.D. at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 1955 and joined its faculty in 1960. He served as Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism from 1988-95 and is currently Charles Cameron Sprague Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science and Professor of Internal Medicine. He is also a Professorial Fellow in the Department of Zoology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is the recipient of the Ernst Oppenheimer Award and the Fred Conrad Koch Award of the Endocrine Society, the Amory Prize of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Henry Dale Medal of the Society for Endocrinology and the Kober Medal of the Association of American Physicians. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and has served as president of the Association of American Physicians, the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Endocrine Society. He discovered a new hormone in 1967 when he and his colleagues showed that the male sex steroid testosterone can be converted to a closely related but more potent hormone dihydrotestosterone by 5a-reductase, an enzyme predominantly located in target tissues. Through experiments in a variety of species he established a bihormonal theory of male sexual differentiation, namely that testosterone controls the development of the internal urogenital tract and that dihydrotestosterone controls the prostate gland and external genitalia. This work has had important clinical ramifications in that it made possible the elucidation of the underlying mechanisms responsible for several syndromes of abnormal sexual development and understanding of the role of dihydrotestosterone in controlling the growth of the prostate gland in man and animals. A direct consequence of these fundamental studies was the development of drugs to inhibit the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, an approach that has been applied to the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia and male pattern baldness. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2000. He died on June 13, 2021.