Salvador Luria

August 13, 1912, Mr.. - February 6, 1991
Italian-American biologist Salvador Edward Luria was born in Turin (Italy), Esther (Sacherdote) and David Luria. In 1929, having received primary and secondary education in local public schools, he enrolled in medical school at the University of Turin. Being engaged under the direction of Giuseppe Levi, a professor of anatomy and histology, L. developed an apparatus for obtaining a culture of living cells. Following the award of medical degrees 'sum-ma cum laude' ( 'with praise and differences') in 1935. it for three years served as an officer of health of troops in the Italian Army. At this time, he studied literature in physics and mathematics, and demobilized from the army - medical physics and radiology at the Institute Curie radium laboratory in Paris. In 1938. y L. awakened interest in bacteriophages (viruses that attack bacteria), and he soon took up the experiments on irradiation bakteriofagalnyh particle X-rays to cause genetic mutations. When in 1940. it became clear that Italy is ready to take the side of Germany during the Second World War, A. decided to leave France. After a brief stop, he got to the United States, where he took the offer to become a scientific assistant at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University in New York. At the conference of the American Physical Society, held next year in Philadelphia, he met Max Delbruck, who spent several days in the laboratory L. New York, where the two scientists have planned joint experiments. In 1942 ... 1943. Guggenheim Foundation grant enabled L. conduct a separate study at Princeton University, and together with Delbrц?ck at Vanderbilt University in Nashville (Tennessee). In 1943, Mr.. L. was appointed professor of bacteriological department at Indiana University in Bloomington. Two years later he was promoted to assistant professor, and 1947. - Associate Professor.
By that time, bacteriologists were already familiar with the phenomenon of resistance - the emergence of bacterial strains that are resistant to the action of both viruses, and to antibacterial drugs. It has been suggested, . that resistance arises either as a result of adaptation of bacteria to the action of some factor of the environment, . either as a spontaneous genetic change - mutation, . allows you to survive the new strain with modified hereditary traits,
. Working with Delbrц?ck, L. first of all 'wanted to find out whether resistant bacteria spontaneous mutants or resistance of cells is the result of the impact of phage to normal in all other respects the bacteria' (as he wrote later).
. During a visit dances for members of the faculty at the country club L
. randomly drew attention to how working slot machine, when he threw coins. Suddenly it dawned on the idea that between the gain, which gets the player, and colonies of mutant bacteria, there is a certain analogy. Slot machine returns most of the money invested in it, but the win by chance, sometimes he makes some money, in rare cases - a significant number of. Similarly, in cultures of bacteria colonies assembled in groups of one, two, four, eight, etc.. 'plus the larger ones - gambling banks' as they called Leningrad, 'the formation of which could be explained by several previous generations rather than playing a simple case of'. Based on observations of fluctuations in the size of the win, the return slot machines, L. developed an experimental method to distinguish the state of induced resistance from resistance due to a previous spontaneous mutation. This so-called fluctuation test, a description of which was published in 1943. with Delbrц?ck (a mathematical model of analysis), was the first evidence for mutations of bacteria. 'This was a decisive step forward in genetics', - said later L. 'No other organism was impossible to calculate the rate of spontaneous mutation for a particular gene or genes for virtually all. If the genes of bacteria have structures of the same kind, . that the genes of other organisms, . bacterium immediately became a favorite subject of genetic research ', . exceeding even the fruit fly or mold it huge and speed the emergence of new generations.,
. Around the same time, L
. and began to work with Max Delbrц?ck Alfred Hershey - a biologist who studied bacteriophages at Washington University in St. Louis (Missouri). The three scientists formed the core group for the study of phages. Members of this 'informal network' have agreed to work only with the seven strains of bacteriophage, . infecting strain of E. coli in Escherichia coli, . so that the results of experiments, . obtained in different laboratories, . were comparable to each other,
. Working independently of each other.
Delbruck and Alfred Hershey established in 1946 that different strains of bacteriophage can exchange genetic material, if the same bacterial cell virus is more than one strain.
In 1950, Mr.. L. was appointed professor of bacteriology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The following year he published incontrovertible evidence that the genes of bacteriophages (and viruses) undergo spontaneous mutations, and this process is similar to that in bacteria. He planned to make a presentation at the Society for General Microbiology conference in Oxford (England) in 1953. The political course of the United States, held at the time of Joseph McCarthy, did not allow L. obtain an exit visa, although he became a citizen of the United States in 1947, Mr.. The report, which is read out by his former student, James D. Watson, it was suggested that genetic information is transferred to the phage protein, but not deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Based on the model of DNA proposed by Watson and Francis Crick, it was clear that mutations arise as a result of loss or replacement purinopirimidinovyh bases of the DNA molecule.
In 1959, Mr.. L. was appointed professor and head of department of Microbiology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. There they had deployed a special training program for young professionals interested in the genetics of bacteria and viruses. He was also engaged in the study of biochemistry of the bacterial cell membrane. In 1965, Mr.. L. became a professor and consultant Solkovskogo Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego.
L., Delbruck and Alfred Hershey shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1969. 'for the discovery of mechanisms of replication and genetic structure of viruses'. 'These discoveries have had a major impact on the development of many areas of biological research', - said in a welcome speech Sven Gard of the Karolinska Institute. 'Mapping the fundamental processes of life cycle of bacteriophages was a prerequisite to describe them using chemical terms, and at the molecular level', - continued Gard. Noting the importance of work laureates in the field of genetics, Gard said that their work is open 'mechanisms of genetic regulation of life'. 'And finally, last but not least: the study of phages has allowed deeper insight into the nature of viruses, it is necessary for understanding the origin of viral diseases of higher animals and control'.
In 1970. L. became a professor in the department of biology at MIT. Since 1974, Mr.. He is also director of the Center for Cancer Research. Discussing the possibility of genetic engineering, L. warns of the need to 'create a society in which technology would be specifically targeted at achieving socially important goals'. Criticizing the high cost of expenditure on national defense and the American space program of manned flights to the Moon, A. conveyed to him as part of the Nobel Prize money to various anti-war groups.
In 1945, Mr.. L. married Zell Hurvits, psychologists. They had a son. Painter and sculptor-lover, L. read as a course in world literature.
Umer A. February 6, 1991, Mr.. Lexington.
Honors received by AL, include award Leng Italian National Academy of Sciences (1965) and award-Louise Gross Horwitz, Columbia University (1965). He is a member of the American Society for Microbiology, National Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Philosophical Society.