[tt] Gunther Stent, an Early Researcher in Molecular Biology, Is Dead at 84

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Gunther Stent, an Early Researcher in Molecular Biology, Is Dead at 84
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/health/research/16stent.html

By DENNIS HEVESI

Gunther Stent, one of the original thinkers in the field of
molecular biology, whose research wrestled with and validated the
breakthrough discovery of the structure of DNA, died Thursday near
his home in Haverford, Pa. He was 84.

The cause was pneumonia, said his wife, Mary Burgwin Ulam.

"Gunther was part of the intellectual glue that kept this small band
of pioneers together," Michael Botchan, co-chairman of the
department of molecular and cell biology at the University of
California, Berkeley, said Friday.

That "small band" had surrounded James D. Watson and Francis H. C.
Crick, who in 1953 revealed the double-helix structure of DNA, or
deoxyribonucleic acid, the molecule that is the medium in which
genetic information is stored and passed from generation to
generation.

In an interview on Friday, Dr. Watson said Dr. Stent was "a major
intellectual" in the field who wrote "the textbook that became the
most exciting tool for the study of molecular genetics following the
finding of the double helix."

Dr. Watson was referring to "Molecular Biology of Bacterial Viruses"
(Freeman, 1963). An updated edition, written by Dr. Stent with his
colleague, Richard Calendar, was titled "Molecular Genetics: An
Introductory Narrative" and sold more than 25,000 copies, in
English, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

Dr. Stent was chairman of the department of molecular biology at
Berkeley from 1980 to 1986; it then had a faculty of 15. After three
years of teaching and research, he became chairman of the renamed
department of molecular and cell biology. By the time he retired in
1995, the department had expanded to 90 faculty members.

Horace Freeland Judson, author of "The Eighth Day of Creation"
(Simon & Schuster, 1971), a history of molecular biology from its
origins to 1970, said that while Dr. Stent had not made major
breakthroughs in his field, "he was an enormous influence on several
generations of young scientists."

Dr. Stent, however, did research that supported the findings of Drs.
Watson and Crick. As a young researcher, he was an associate of Max
Delbrück at the California Institute of Technology, one of the
fathers of molecular biology. Dr. Delbrück focused on the genetics
of bacteriophage, a virus that attacks bacteria.

In the early 1950s, Dr. Stent did experiments that incorporated
radioactive phosphorus atoms into the bacteriophage virus. When the
radioactive phosphorus decays, it converts into sulfur atoms. Dr.
Stent's work showed how the decay caused a break in the DNA
structure of the bacteriophage.

"Through careful measurements of this decay and the decrease in
viral infectivity, Gunther provided important data validating the
Watson and Crick structure of DNA," Dr. Botchan said. "This
significant research was published in 1954, one year after Crick and
Watson's famous paper was published in the journal Nature."

"He had a very broad view and understanding of the major issues of
molecular biology in the early days," Dr. Botchan added. "He helped
clarify the physical basis for genetic inheritance."

Gunther Siegmund Stensch (he later changed his last name) was born
in Berlin on March 28, 1924, a son of Georg and Elisabeth
Karfunkelstein Stensch. His father owned a lighting business.

In an autobiography, "Nazis, Women and Molecular Biology: Memoirs of
a Lucky Self-Hater" (Briones Books, 1998), Dr. Stent wrote that as a
14-year-old Jewish boy he had been so foolish as to be upset at not
being able to join the Hitler Youth. Too soon afterward, however, he
was fleeing through the Ardennes forest on the way to Antwerp,
Belgium, then made his way to England and Canada and eventually
joined relatives in Chicago.

Besides Ms. Ulam, his second wife, Dr. Stent is survived by a son,
Stefan, and two stepsons, Alexander Ulam and Joseph Ulam. His first
wife, Inga Loftsdottir Stent, died in the early 1990s.

Dr. Stent earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at the University
of Illinois in 1945. Soon after World War II ended, he was back in
Berlin as a member of an American intelligence group assessing the
state of German science.

Returning to the United States, he earned a doctorate in chemistry
at the University of Illinois in 1948. Only then did his interest
shift to molecular biology. Dr. Stent had read about Dr. Delbrück's
work at Cal Tech, went there for an interview and persuaded the man
who would become his mentor that he could master the intricacies of
bacteriophage.

It was the first of several major moves for Dr. Stent.

In 1950, he taught at the University of Copenhagen; then, in 1951,
at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He became an associate professor
at Berkeley in 1952.

By 1969, Dr. Stent "was bored with molecular biology," Ms. Ulam
said, and had turned his attention to philosophy. That year, he
published "The Coming of the Golden Age: A View of the End of
Progress" (Doubleday), which was based on lectures he had given in
1967 and '68 under a special appointment as a professor of arts and
sciences at Berkeley.

The book essentially posits that it is possible to reach the end of
progress because humanity has learned everything there is to know in
a particular field. He contended that that end had been reached in
molecular biology.

"It turned out to be not prescient at all, but was dead wrong," Dr.
Botchan said. "New methods were developed regarding the recombinant
DNA, and surprising unexpected discoveries are being made in an
exponential way." Dr. Stent later admitted that he had been wrong.

By then, his interests had shifted once again, to what he believed
was the biggest challenge facing science: understanding how the
brain works. After taking a sabbatical to study neurobiology at
Harvard Medical School, he returned to Berkeley. Dr. Stent then
received a National Institutes of Health research grant under which
he pinpointed what nerves connect to the muscles that allow leeches
to swim.