American Philosophical Society
Member History

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61Name:  Albert F. Blakeslee
 Year Elected:  1924
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1858
 Death Date:  11/16/54
   
62Name:  Dr. Helen M. Blau
 Institution:  Stanford University
 Year Elected:  2018
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  202. Cellular and Developmental Biology
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1948
   
 
Helen Blau is world-renowned for her seminal discovery that the differentiated state is reversible rather than fixed and terminal. Her demonstration of cellular plasticity constituted a paradigm shift in our understanding of mammalian cell differentiation. Using muscle as a model, Blau’s work provided the first definitive evidence that diverse cell types could be reprogrammed using non-dividing cell fusions. Her studies demonstrated that cell differentiation requires continuous regulation and that a shift in the stoichiometry of trans-acting regulators induces nuclear reprogramming, providing the scientific underpinnings for the induction of pluripotent stem cells (iPS). Blau applied this discovery to stem cell biology. She led the field with novel approaches to treating muscle damaged due to disease, injury, or aging. She showed that biophysical and biochemical cues synergize to maintain the stem cell state in culture and rejuvenate the function of aged muscle stem cell populations, profoundly impacting the field of regenerative medicine. Among Helen Blau's many honors are the 1999 FASEB Excellence in Science Award and a Fulbright Senior Specialists award. She was President of the American Society for Developmental Biology 1994-95, on the National Advisory Council of the National Institute of Aging 1996-2000, President of the International Society of Differentiation 2004-05, and member of the Harvard Board of Overseers 2004-10. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2018.
 
63Name:  Dr. Günter Blobel
 Institution:  Howard Hughes Medical Institute & Rockefeller University
 Year Elected:  1989
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  202. Cellular and Developmental Biology
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1936
 Death Date:  February 18, 2018
   
 
German-born cell biologist Günter Blobel was known for communicating difficult concepts in a clear and interesting way. He contributed pioneering work that shed light on diseases such as cystic fibrosis, Alzheimer's and AIDS and provided the basis for bioengineered drugs such as insulin. In 1999 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery that proteins have signals that govern their movement and position in the cell. Each protein, he found, has its own "zip code" that determines whether the protein is transported across or integrated into a specific cellular membrane. Dr. Blobel received his medical degree from the University of Tübingen in Germany in 1960, earned a doctorate in oncology from the University of Wisconsin in 1967 and became a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University protein laboratory, where he had been a professor since 1976. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Society for Cell Biology, he had also been an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1986. Dr. Blobel died on February 18, 2018, at the age of 81 in New York City.
 
64Name:  Dr. Konrad E. Bloch
 Institution:  Harvard University
 Year Elected:  1966
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1912
 Death Date:  October 15, 2000
   
65Name:  Dr. Floyd E. Bloom
 Institution:  The Scripps Research Institute
 Year Elected:  1989
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  208. Plant Sciences
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1936
   
 
As chairman of the Scripps Research Department of Neuropharmacology between 1989-2000 and 2002-05, Floyd Bloom has for some years been at the forefront of neuroscience research. A professor at Scripps from 1983 until his appointment as chairman, he was among the first to determine the distribution of neuronal circuits in the brain by chemically labeling the transmitter characteristics of neurons in each circuit. Such evidence established the fact that signaling in the brain may be chemical as well as electrical. By applying newly developed methods, he has investigated brain-specific proteins and conducted pioneering studies on nervous system disorders of genetic origin. Presently professor emeritus at Scripps Research Institute, Dr. Bloom has also devoted substantial effort to the work of Neurome, Inc., the La Jolla-based biotechnology company dedicated to discovery and development of solutions for human neurodegenerative diseases, which he co-founded in 2000. Dr. Bloom has also served as editor-in-chief of Science and as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1977 and is the recipient of numerous prizes, including the Janssen Award in the Basic Sciences and the Pasarow Award in Neuropsychiatry. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and a member of the Institute of Medicine. He has over 600 publications to his credit, including The Biochemical Basis of Neuropharmacology.
 
66Name:  Dr. Barry R. Bloom
 Institution:  Harvard University
 Year Elected:  2004
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  209. Neurobiology
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1937
   
 
Barry Bloom's passion has been to relate the cutting edge of biomedical science to the needs of the 85% of the world's people living in resource-poor developing countries. His initial research analyzed the complex mechanisms of the immune response by developing in vitro models, enabling him to discover the first lymphokine or cytokine, non-antibody products of activated lymphocytes that regulate the functions of the immune system and mediate inflammation, tissue damage and resistance to microbial infection. After teaching the first course on immunology in India, he began research on leprosy. With collaborators, he created the first DNA library containing all the genes of the leprosy and the tubercle bacilli, thereby ultimately enabling the complete genomes of these major pathogens of humans to be sequenced. Those libraries and the first monoclonal antibodies produced against these pathogens were given to the World Health Organization (WHO) to distribute free of charge to scientists all over the world, helping to stimulate a global effort against these diseases. He has more recently explored the genetic basis of resistance of experimental animals against tuberculosis which integrates knowledge of the host and pathogen in understanding the disease. When there was a serious increase in tuberculosis in the U.S. in the early 1990s his group established, against conventional wisdom, that active transmission of infection, rather than reactivation of old infections, was an important component of the epidemic. Such transmission required implementation of stringent public health measures. He has worked in an official capacity for the WHO for the past 37 years and has advised the National Institutes of Health, the National Academy of Sciences and the White House on scientific issues and on international health policies. Dr. Bloom is currently Dean of the Faculty of the Harvard School of Public Health.
 
67Name:  Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg
 Institution:  NASA Astrobiology Institute & Fox Chase Cancer Center & University of Pennsylvania
 Year Elected:  1986
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  204. Medicine, Surgery, Pathology and Immunology
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1925
 Death Date:  April 5, 2011
   
 
Baruch S. Blumberg served as the President of the American Philosophical Society 2005-2011. He was a Distinguished Scientist at Fox Chase Cancer Center and University Professor of Medicine and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. From May 1999 until October 2002, he served as Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Astrobiology Institute headquartered at Ames Research Center (ARC). He was Senior Advisor to the Administrator of NASA (2000-01), and Principal Scientist of the NASA Division of Fundamental Space Biology (2002-04). In October 2008 he was appointed Distinguished Scientist at ARC associated with the NASA Lunar Science Institute and the Astrobiology Institute. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford University, from 1989 to 1994 and, prior to that, Associate Director for Clinical Research at Fox Chase. He was on the staff of the National Institutes of Health from 1957 to 1964. Dr. Blumberg earned his M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, in 1951 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Oxford University in 1957. Dr. Blumberg's research covered many areas including clinical research, epidemiology, virology, genetics, anthropology, and space-related biological science. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1976 for "discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases" and specifically, for the discovery of the Hepatitis B virus. In 1993 he and his co-inventor, Dr. Irving Millman, were elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame for their Hepatitis B vaccine and the diagnostic test for Hepatitis B. Dr. Blumberg was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1986. He died April 5, 2011, at the age of 85, in Moffett Field, California.
 
68Name:  Franz Boas
 Year Elected:  1903
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1858
 Death Date:  12/21/42
   
69Name:  Dr. David Bodian
 Institution:  Johns Hopkins University
 Year Elected:  1973
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  209. Neurobiology
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1910
 Death Date:  9/18/92
   
70Name:  Sir Walter Bodmer
 Institution:  Hertford College, Oxford; Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine
 Year Elected:  1989
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  204. Medicine, Surgery, Pathology and Immunology
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1936
   
 
Sir Walter Bodmer was principal of Hertford College at Oxford University from 1996-2005. Formerly director general and director of research of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, he has served as president of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO); president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science; chairman of the BBC Science consultative group; and chairman of the trustees of the Natural History Museum. The co-author of a classic book on human population genetics, he has contributed heavily to both the science and the theory of human genetics. Sir Walter has been a pioneer in elucidating the laws of tissue matches in humans, as well as in the mapping of genes on chromosomes by fusion of human and rodent cells in culture. He led the group that demonstrated that the gene for hereditary colonic polypsis is on chromosome 5. An eminently effective explicator of genetics and a public advocate for science, he has held academic appointments and honorary fellowships at Keble College, Oxford; Clare College, Cambridge; the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of Surgeons; and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1974, was knighted in 1986 and is a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He was chancellor of the University of Salford from 1995 to 2005.
 
71Name:  Dr. Lawrence Bogorad
 Institution:  Harvard University
 Year Elected:  1985
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  202. Cellular and Developmental Biology
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1921
 Death Date:  December 28, 2003
   
72Name:  Dr. James Bonner
 Institution:  California Institute of Technology
 Year Elected:  1966
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1910
 Death Date:  9/13/96
   
73Name:  Dr. John Tyler Bonner
 Institution:  Princeton University
 Year Elected:  1972
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  203. Evolution & Ecology, Systematics, Population Genetics, Paleontology, and Physical Anthropology
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1920
 Death Date:  February 7, 2019
   
 
John T. Bonner was George M. Moffett Professor of Biology Emeritus at Princeton University. Dr. Bonner served on the Princeton faculty for 42 years and continued his research and teaching for over two decades after his retirement. His prime interests were in evolution and development, and he used cellular slime molds as a tool to seek an understanding of those twin disciplines. Dr. Bonner earned B.S. (1941), M.A. (1942) and Ph.D. (1947) degrees from Harvard University. He joined the Princieton faculty in 1947, chairing the Department of Biology for 14 years and assuming emeritus status in 1990. A member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1969) and the National Academy of Sciences (1973), Dr. Bonner has authored numerous works, including The Evolution of Development (1958); The Scale of Nature (1969); The Evolution of Culture in Animals (1980); Researches on Cellular Slime Molds (1988); and Life Cycles: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist (1992). His more recent books include, Why Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales (2006) and Randomness in Evolution (2013). John Tyler Bonner died on February 7, 2019 in Portland, Oregon at the age of 98.
 
74Name:  Sir Christopher C. Booth
 Institution:  University College, London
 Year Elected:  1981
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  204. Medicine, Surgery, Pathology and Immunology
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1924
 Death Date:  July 13, 2012
   
 
Sir Christopher Booth was a distinguished physician who occupied many high-profile positions, including President of the British Medical Association, Director of the Medical Research Council's Clinical Research Centre and President of the Royal Society of Medicine. His early interests in medical history resulted in a paper on Dr. John Fothergill and angina pectoris that was published in the very first volume of Medical History in 1957 while he was a research registrar at the Hammersmith Hospital, London. Soon after, he commenced important research on vitamin B12 absorption and utilization. In 1971 he published, with Betsy Corner, selected correspondence of John Fothergill, an achievement for any historian, let alone one who was also a professor of medicine. As a historian, Sir Christopher pioneered unique fields, and his enthusiastic investigation of doctors from the Yorkshire Dales revealed a network of remarkable characters, many of them Quakers, whose influence spread from Yorkshire to have great effect in national and international medical worlds. Sir Christopher was an Honorary Professor and member of the Wellcome Trust Group for the study of 20th century medicine at University College, London from 1989 until his death on July 13, 2012. He was elected an international member of the American Philosophical Society in 1981.
 
75Name:  Edwin G. Boring
 Year Elected:  1945
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1887
 Death Date:  7/1/68
   
76Name:  Dr. David Botstein
 Institution:  Princeton University; Calico
 Year Elected:  2008
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1944
   
 
In 2013 David Botstein retired as the Director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University and joined Calico as Chief Scientific Officer. Calico is a Google startup that will focus on aging and life-extension. Previously he served as Griswold Professor of Genetics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; as vice president of science for Genentech, Inc.; and as Acherman Professor and chairman of the Department of Genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. A native of Switzerland, he holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (1967). David Botstein is one of the greatest geneticists working today and a pioneer in more ways than one. His early genetic work contributed to the discovery and understanding of transposable elements in bacteria. In the 1970s, his studies were instrumental in making the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae a major model organism that continues to be prominent in both fundamental biological research and biotechnology. A seminal 1980 paper by Botstein and colleagues suggested to employ restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) for producing a linkage map of the human genome. That visionary proposal became the foundation of the new science of genomics. He also co-founded the Saccharomyces Genome Database, which continues to be a leading international resource that connects genomic sequences with biological functions. In addition, Botstein is a pioneering educator who revamped the Princeton biological curriculum through the teaching of biology in close juxtaposition to physics, mathematics and chemistry. David Botstein is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1981); the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1985); and the Institute of Medicine (1993). Other professional honors include the Eli Lilly Award (1978); the Genetics Society of America Medal (1988); the Rosenstiel Award (1992); the Gruber Prize in Genetics (2003); and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (2013). David Botstein was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2008.
 
77Name:  Norman L. Bowen
 Year Elected:  1930
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1887
 Death Date:  9/11/56
   
78Name:  Isaiah Bowman
 Year Elected:  1923
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1879
 Death Date:  1/6/50
   
79Name:  Dr. Paul D. Boyer
 Institution:  University of California, Los Angeles
 Year Elected:  1998
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1918
 Death Date:  June 2, 2018
   
 
Paul Delos Boyer was born July 31, 1918 in Provo, Utah. He received his B.S. in chemistry from Brigham Young University in 1939 and a Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1943. He served at Stanford University with a war research project on stabilization of human serum albumin from 1943-45 and with the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, MD in 1946. From 1946-63 he was a faculty member at the University of Minnesota and from 1963 to 1999 a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles, becoming emeritus in 1999. In 1965 he became founding director of UCLA's Molecular Biology Institute. Dr. Boyer received the American Chemical Society Award in Enzyme Chemistry in 1955 and during that year he was a Guggenheim Fellow for studies in Sweden. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1968) and the National Academy of Sciences (1970). He has received the Rose Award of the American Society of Biochemistry (1989) and honorary doctorates from the University of Stockholm (1974), the University of Minnesota (1996) and the University of Wisconsin (1998). In 1997 he shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Walker and Skou for their studies with ATP (adenosine triphosphate). Throughout nature ATP serves for the capture and use of energy. Dr. Boyer also served as editor of the 18-volume treatise "The Enzymes" (1971-90) and has published over 300 papers, mostly about enzymes. About half of these relate to the mechanism of the complex membrane-bound ATP synthase. With his associates Boyer discovered that during ATP synthesis the three catalytic sites, even though they have identical amino acid sequences, proceed sequentially through strikingly different conformations. They obtained the first evidence that this occurs by a novel rotational catalysis. The rotational movement of a multi-subunit portion in the membrane drives the rotation of a single subunit in the center of the catalytic site cluster, resulting in the sequential conformational changes necessary for the binding, formation, and release of ATP. Dr. Paul D. Boyer died June 2, 2018, at the age of 99 at home in Los Angeles, California.
 
80Name:  Dr. Sydney Brenner
 Institution:  The Salk Institute
 Year Elected:  1979
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  207. Genetics
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1927
 Death Date:  April 5, 2019
   
 
Sydney Brenner was born in South Africa and studied medicine and science at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Working in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory, he received his D.Phil. degree from Oxford University in 1952. After briefly returning to South Africa, Dr. Brenner joined the Medical Research Council's Unit in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. He became the director of its successor, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, in 1979. In 1987 he became director of the MRC's Unit of Molecular Genetics, retiring in 1992. His early research was in molecular genetics. Working with bacterophages and bacteria, he discovered messenger RNA (working with Jacob and Meselson) and, with Crick, showed that the code was composed of triplets. In the 1960s, he changed the direction of his work and began research on C. elegans, establishing it as a powerful experimental system for the analysis of complex biological processes. Believing that the techniques of cloning and sequencing would open up new ways of approaching genetics, he turned his attention to vertebrate genomics and established the pufferfish genome as a valuable tool in genome analysis. He served as the founder and president of the Molecular Sciences Institute, a private research institute in Berkeley, CA. His achievements were recognized with the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award (1971), both the Royal Medal (1974) and the Copley Medal (1991) from the Royal Society of London, and the Kyoto Prize (1990), to name just four of more than twenty such honors. In 1987 he was named a Companion of Honour. He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2002. He was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society in 1979. Sydney Brenner died April 5, 2019 in Singapore at the age of 92.
 
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