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Har Gobind Khorana

BornJanuary 9, 1922

Raipur Punjab, British India 

DiedNovember 9, 2011 (aged 89)

Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.

Residence India  

Nationality American[1]

 

Fields Molecular Biology

Institutions

MIT (1970 - 2007)

University of Wisconsin, Madison (1960-70)

University of British Columbia (1952-60)

Cambridge University (1950-52)

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich 

(1948-49)

Alma mater  

University of Liverpool (Ph.D)

University of the Punjab (BS/MS)

Known forFirst to demonstrate the role of  Nucleotides in

protein synthesis 

Notable

awards

Nobel Prize in Medicine (1968), Gairdner

Foundation International Award, Louisa Gross

Horwitz Prize, Albert Lasker Award for Basic

Medical Research 

Har Gobind Khorana also known as Hargobind Khorana (Punjabi: ਹਿਰ ਗੋਰਦ ਿਖੁਾਨਾ ,

January 9, 1922 – November 9, 2011) was an Indian-born American biochemist who shared the

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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W.

Holley for research that helped to show how the nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry thegenetic code of the cell, control the cell's synthesis of proteins. Khorana and Nirenberg were also

awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in the same year.[2]

 

He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1966,

[1]

 and subsequently received theNational Medal of Science. He served as MIT's Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Biology and

Chemistry, Emeritus [3]

 and was a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The ScrippsResearch Institute. 

[edit] Early life, education, and career

Khorana was born to Hindu[4]

 parents in Raipur, British India.[5][6]

 His father was the village"patwari" (or taxation official). He was home schooled by his father until high school. He earned

his B.Sc from Punjab University, Lahore in 1943, and his M.Sc from Punjab University in 1945.

In 1945, he began studying at the University of Liverpool. After earning a Ph.D in 1948, hecontinued his postdoctoral studies in Zürich (1948 – 1949). Subsequently, he spent two years at

Cambridge University. In 1952 he went to the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and in

1960 moved to the University of Wisconsin – Madison. In 1970 Khorana became the Alfred Sloan 

Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where heworked until retiring in 2007. [7] 

[edit] Family

Khorana married Esther Elizabeth Sibler (who predeceased her husband) in 1952.[8] They had

three children: Julia Elizabeth (born May 4, 1953), Emily Anne (born October 18, 1954; died

1979), and Dave Roy (born July 26, 1958).[8]

 

[edit] Khorana's research relevant to his Nobel Prize

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) with two repeating units (UCUCUCU → UCU CUC UCU) producedtwo alternating amino acids. This, combined with the Nirenberg and Leder experiment, showed

that UCU codes for Serine and CUC codes for Leucine. RNAs with three repeating units

(UACUACUA → UAC UAC UAC, or ACU ACU ACU, or CUA CUA CUA) produced threedifferent strings of amino acids. RNAs with four repeating units including UAG, UAA, or UGA,

produced only dipeptides and tripeptides thus revealing that UAG, UAA and UGA are stop

codons.[citation needed ]

 

With this, Khorana and his team had established that the mother of all  codes, the biological

language common to all living organisms, is spelled out in three-letter words: each set of three

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nucleotides codes for a specific amino acid. Their Nobel lecture was delivered on December 12,

1968.[9]

 Khorana was the first scientist to synthesize oligonucleotides.[citation needed ]

 

[edit] Subsequent research

He extended the above to long DNA Polymers using non-aqueous chemistry and assembledthese into the first synthetic gene, using polymerase and ligase enzymes that link pieces of DNA

together.[10]

 as well as methods that anticipated the invention of  PCR.[11]

 These custom-designedpieces of artificial genes are widely used in biology labs for sequencing, cloning and engineering

new plants and animals. This invention of Khorana has become automated and commercialized

so that anyone now can order a synthetic gene from any of a number of companies. One merely

needs to send the genetic sequence to one of the companies to receive an oligonucleotide withthe desired sequence.

His lab has since mid 1970s [12]

 studied the biochemistry of the membrane proteinbacteriorhodopsin responsible for converting photon energy into proton gradient energy and

most recently studying the structural related visual pigment rhodopsin.[13] 

[edit] Legacy

The University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Government of India (DBT Department of 

Biotechnology), and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum jointly created the Khorana

Program in 2007. The mission of the Khorana Program is to build a seamless community of 

scientists, industrialists, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and India.

The program is focused on three objectives: Providing graduate and undergraduate students with

a transformative research experience, engaging partners in rural development and food security,and facilitating public-private partnerships between the U.S. and India. In 2009, Khorana washosted by the Khorana Program and honored at the 33rd Steenbock Symposium in Madison,

Wisconsin.[citation needed ] 

[edit] Death

Khorana died of natural causes on November 9, 2011 in Concord, Massachusetts, aged 89.[14]

 A

widower, he was survived by his children Julia and Dave.[15]

 

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Alexander Fleming

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Alexander Fleming (disambiguation). 

Sir Alexander Fleming

Fleming (centre) receiving the Nobel prize from King Gustaf V of 

Sweden (right), 1945 

Born 6 August 1881

Lochfield, Scotland 

Died 11 March 1955 (aged 73)

London, England 

Citizenship  United Kingdom 

Nationality  Scottish 

Fields  Bacteriology, immunology 

Alma mater Royal Polytechnic Institution; St Mary's HospitalMedical School 

Known for  Discovery of penicillin 

Notable awards  Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1945) 

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Signature 

Sir Alexander Fleming (6 August 1881 – 11 March 1955) was a Scottish biologist and

pharmacologist. He wrote many articles on bacteriology, immunology, and chemotherapy. Hisbest-known discoveries are the discovery of the enzyme lysozyme in 1923 and the antibiotic 

substance penicillin from the mould Penicillium notatum in 1928, for which he shared the NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain.[1] 

In 1999, Time magazine named Fleming one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th

Century for his discovery[2] of  penicillin, and stated:

It was a discovery that would change the course of history. The active ingredient in that mould, which

Fleming named penicillin, turned out to be an infection-fighting agent of enormous potency. When it

was finally recognized for what it was, the most efficacious life-saving drug in the world, penicillin would

alter forever the treatment of bacterial infections. By the middle of the century, Fleming's discovery had

spawned a huge pharmaceutical industry, churning out synthetic penicillins that would conquer some of 

mankind's most ancient scourges, including syphilis, gangrene and tuberculosis.[3]

 

Contents

[hide] 

  1 Biography 

o  1.1 Early life 

o  1.2 Research 

  1.2.1 Work before penicillin 

  1.2.2 Accidental discovery 

  1.2.3 Purification and stabilisation 

  1.2.4 Antibiotics 

o  1.3 Personal life 

o  1.4 Death 

  2 Honours, awards and achievements 

  3 See also 

  4 Bibliography 

  5 References 

  6 External links 

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

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Fleming was born on 6 August 1881 at Lochfield, a farm near Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland. He

was the third of the four children of Hugh Fleming (1816 – 1888) from his second marriage toGrace Stirling Morton (1848 – 1928), the daughter of a neighbouring farmer. Hugh Fleming had

four surviving children from his first marriage. He was 59 at the time of his second marriage, and

died when Alexander (known as Alec) was seven.

Fleming went to Loudoun Moor School and Darvel School, and earned a two-year scholarship to

Kilmarnock Academy before moving to London, where he attended the Royal PolytechnicInstitution.[4] After working in a shipping office for four years, the twenty-year-old Fleming

inherited some money from an uncle, John Fleming. His elder brother, Tom, was already a

physician and suggested to his younger sibling that he follow the same career, and so in 1903,the younger Alexander enrolled at St Mary's Hospital Medical School in Paddington. He

qualified MBBS from the school with distinction in 1906.

By chance, however, he had been a member of the rifle club (he had been an active member of the Volunteer Force since 1900). The captain of the club, wishing to retain Fleming in the team

suggested that he join the research department at St Mary's, where he became assistantbacteriologist to Sir Almroth Wright, a pioneer in vaccine therapy and immunology. He gained aBSc with Gold Medal in 1908, and became a lecturer at St Mary's until 1914. On 23 December

1915, Fleming married a trained nurse, Sarah Marion McElroy of  Killala, County Mayo, Ireland.

Fleming served throughout World War I as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was

Mentioned in Dispatches. He and many of his colleagues worked in battlefield hospitals at the

Western Front in France. In 1918 he returned to St Mary's Hospital, where he was electedProfessor of Bacteriology of the University of London in 1928.

[edit] Research

 [ edit  ] Work before penicillin

Following World War I, Fleming actively searched for anti-bacterial agents, having witnessed

the death of many soldiers from sepsis resulting from infected wounds. Antiseptics killed the

patients' immunological defences more effectively than they killed the invading bacteria. In anarticle he submitted for the medical journal The Lancet  during World War I, Fleming described

an ingenious experiment, which he was able to conduct as a result of his own glass blowing

skills, in which he explained why antiseptics were killing more soldiers than infection itself 

during World War I. Antiseptics worked well on the surface, but deep wounds tended to shelteranaerobic bacteria from the antiseptic agent, and antiseptics seemed to remove beneficial agents

produced that protected the patients in these cases at least as well as they removed bacteria, anddid nothing to remove the bacteria that were out of reach. Sir Almroth Wright strongly supported

Fleming's findings, but despite this, most army physicians over the course of the war continuedto use antiseptics even in cases where this worsened the condition of the patients.

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 [ edit  ] Accidental discovery 

Miracle cure.

Main article: History of penicillin 

"When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutioniseall medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic, or bacteria killer," Fleming would latersay, "But I suppose that was exactly what I did."[2][5] 

By 1927, Fleming was investigating the properties of  staphylococci. He was already well-knownfrom his earlier work, and had developed a reputation as a brilliant researcher, but his laboratory

was often untidy. On 3 September 1928, Fleming returned to his laboratory having spent August

on holiday with his family. Before leaving, he had stacked all his cultures of staphylococci on a

bench in a corner of his laboratory. On returning, Fleming noticed that one culture wascontaminated with a fungus, and that the colonies of staphylococci that had immediately

surrounded it had been destroyed, whereas other colonies farther away were normal. Flemingshowed the contaminated culture to his former assistant Merlin Price, who reminded him, "That's

how you discovered  lysozyme."[6] Fleming grew the mould in a pure culture and found that it

produced a substance that killed a number of disease-causing bacteria. He identified the mould as

being from the Penicillium genus, and, after some months of calling it "mould juice" named thesubstance it released  penicillin on 7 March 1929.[7] 

He investigated its positive anti-bacterial effect on many organisms, and noticed that it affectedbacteria such as staphylococci and many other Gram-positive pathogens that cause scarlet fever, 

pneumonia, meningitis and diphtheria, but not typhoid fever or paratyphoid fever, which are

caused by Gram-negative bacteria, for which he was seeking a cure at the time. It also affected

 Neisseria gonorrhoeae , which causes gonorrhoea although this bacterium is Gram-negative.

Fleming published his discovery in 1929, in the British Journal of Experimental Pathology ,[8]

 but

little attention was paid to his article. Fleming continued his investigations, but found thatcultivating penicillium was quite difficult, and that after having grown the mould, it was even

more difficult to isolate the antibiotic agent. Fleming's impression was that because of the

problem of producing it in quantity, and because its action appeared to be rather slow, penicillinwould not be important in treating infection. Fleming also became convinced that penicillin

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would not last long enough in the human body (in vivo) to kill bacteria effectively. Many clinical

tests were inconclusive, probably because it had been used as a surface antiseptic. In the 1930s,

Fleming’s trials occasionally showed more promise,[9] and he continued, until 1940, to try to

interest a chemist skilled enough to further refine usable penicillin.

Fleming finally abandoned penicillin, and not long after he did, Howard Florey and Ernst BorisChain at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford took up researching and mass-producing it, with

funds from the U.S. and British governments. They started mass production after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. When D-Day arrived, they had made enough penicillin to treat all the wounded

Allied forces.

 [ edit  ] Purification and stabilisation

3D-model of benzylpenicillin.

Ernst Boris Chain and Edward Abraham worked out how to isolate and concentrate penicillin.Abraham was the first to propose the correct structure of penicillin.[10][11] Shortly after the team

published its first results in 1940, Fleming telephoned Howard Florey, Chain's head of 

department, to say that he would be visiting within the next few days. When Chain heard that he

was coming, he remarked, "Good God! I thought he was dead." 

Norman Heatley suggested transferring the active ingredient of penicillin back into water bychanging its acidity. This produced enough of the drug to begin testing on animals. There were

many more people involved in the Oxford team, and at one point the entire Dunn School was

involved in its production.

After the team had developed a method of purifying penicillin to an effective first stable form in

1940, several clinical trials ensued, and their amazing success inspired the team to developmethods for mass production and mass distribution in 1945.

Fleming was modest about his part in the development of penicillin, describing his fame as the

"Fleming Myth" and he praised Florey and Chain for transforming the laboratory curiosity into apractical drug. Fleming was the first to discover the properties of the active substance, giving

him the privilege of naming it: penicillin. He also kept, grew and distributed the original mould

for twelve years, and continued until 1940 to try to get help from any chemist who had enoughskill to make penicillin. But Sir Henry Harris said in 1998: "Without Fleming, no Chain; without 

Chain, no Florey; without Florey, no Heatley; without Heatley, no penicillin."[12]

 

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 [ edit  ] Antibiotics

Modern antibiotics are tested using a method similar to Fleming's discovery

Fleming's accidental discovery and isolation of penicillin in September 1928 marks the start of modern antibiotics. Before that, several scientists had published or pointed out that mould or

penicillium sp. were able to inhibate bacterial growth, and even to cure bacterial infections in

animal (Ernest Duchesne in 1897 in his thesis "Contribution to the study of vital competition inmicro-organisms: antagonism between moulds and microbes", or also Clodomiro Picado Twight 

whose work at Institut Pasteur in 1923 on the inhibiting action of fungi of the "Penicillin sp"

genre in the growth of staphylococci drew little interest from the direction of the Institut at the

time). Fleming was the first to push these studies further by isolating the penicillin, and by beingmotivated enough to promote his discovery at a larger scale. Fleming also discovered very early

that bacteria developed antibiotic resistance whenever too little penicillin was used or when it

was used for too short a period. Almroth Wright had predicted antibiotic resistance even before it

was noticed during experiments. Fleming cautioned about the use of penicillin in his manyspeeches around the world. He cautioned not to use penicillin unless there was a properly

diagnosed reason for it to be used, and that if it were used, never to use too little, or for too short

a period, since these are the circumstances under which bacterial resistance to antibioticsdevelops.

[edit] Personal life

The popular story[13] of  Winston Churchill's father paying for Fleming's education after

Fleming's father saved young Winston from death is false. According to the biography, Penicillin

 Man: Alexander Fleming and the Antibiotic Revolution by Kevin Brown, Alexander Fleming, in

a letter[14] to his friend and colleague Andre Gratia,[15] described this as "A wondrous fable." Nordid he save Winston Churchill himself during World War II. Churchill was saved by Lord

Moran, using sulphonamides, since he had no experience with penicillin, when Churchill fell ill

in Carthage in Tunisia in 1943. The  Daily Telegraph and the  Morning Post  on 21 December1943 wrote that he had been saved by penicillin. He was saved by the new sulphonamide drug,

Sulphapyridine, known at the time under the research code M&B 693, discovered and produced

by May & Baker Ltd, Dagenham, Essex  – a subsidiary of the French group Rhône-Poulenc. In asubsequent radio broadcast, Churchill referred to the new drug as "This admirable M&B."

[16] It is

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highly probable that the correct information about the sulphonamide did not reach the

newspapers because, since the original sulphonamide antibacterial, Prontosil, had been adiscovery by the German laboratory Bayer and Britain was at war with Germany at the time, it

was thought better to raise British morale by associating Churchill's cure with the British

discovery, penicillin.

Fleming's first wife, Sarah, died in 1949. Their only child, Robert Fleming, became a general

medical practitioner. After Sarah's death, Fleming married Dr. Amalia Koutsouri-Vourekas, aGreek  colleague at St. Mary's, on 9 April 1953; she died in 1986.

[edit] Death

In 1955, Fleming died at his home in London of a heart attack . He was buried at St Paul's

Cathedral.[17]

 

[edit] Honours, awards and achievements

Faroe Islands stamp commemorating Fleming

His discovery of penicillin had changed the world of modern medicine by introducing the age of useful antibiotics; penicillin has saved, and is still saving, millions of people around the world.[18] 

The laboratory at St Mary's Hospital where Fleming discovered penicillin is home to the Fleming

Museum, a popular London attraction. His alma mater, St Mary's Hospital Medical School, merged with Imperial College London in 1988. The Sir Alexander Fleming Building on the

South Kensington campus was opened in 1998 and is now one of the main preclinical teachingsites of the Imperial College School of Medicine. 

His other alma mater, the Royal Polytechnic Institution (now the University of Westminster) hasnamed one of its student halls of residence Alexander Fleming House, which is near to Old

Street. 

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  Fleming, Florey and Chain jointly received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945. According to the

rules of the Nobel committee a maximum of three people may share the prize. Fleming's Nobel

Prize medal was acquired by the National Museums of Scotland in 1989, and will be on display

when the Royal Museum re-opens in 2011.

  Fleming was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.[1]

 

  Fleming was awarded the Hunterian Professorship by the Royal College of Surgeons of England

  Fleming and Florey were knighted, as Knights Bachelor, in 1944; twenty-one years later, in 1965,

Florey was elevated to the life peerage as Baron Florey of Adelaide in the State of South

Australia and Commonwealth of Australia and of Marston in the County of Oxford.

  When 2000 was approaching, at least three large Swedish magazines ranked penicillin as the

most important discovery of the millennium. Some of these magazines estimated that about

200 million lives have been saved by this discovery.[citation needed ]

 

  A statue of Alexander Fleming stands outside the main bullring in Madrid, Plaza de Toros de Las

Ventas. It was erected by subscription from grateful matadors, as penicillin greatly reduced the

number of deaths in the bullring.

  Flemingovo náměstí is a square named after Fleming in the university area of the Dejvice 

community in Prague. 

  In mid-2009, Fleming was commemorated on a new series of  banknotes issued by theClydesdale Bank; his image appears on the new issue of £5 notes.

[19] 

  91006 Fleming, an asteroid in the Asteroid Belt, is named for Fleming.

Lynn Margulis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lynn Margulis

Born March 5, 1938 (age 73)

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Chicago, Illinois, United States of America 

Nationality American  

Fields Biology

Known for Endosymbiotic theory

Notable

awards

William Procter Prize for Scientific

Achievement  

Lynn Margulis (born March 5, 1938) is an American biologist and University Professor in the

Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[1]

 She is best known for

her theory on the origin of  eukaryotic organelles, and her contributions to the endosymbiotic

theory, which is now generally accepted for how certain organelles were formed. She is alsoassociated with the Gaia hypothesis, based on an idea developed by the English environmental

scientist James Lovelock . 

Contents

[hide] 

  1 Research 

o  1.1 Endosymbiotic theory 

o  1.2 Theory of symbiotic relationships driving evolution 

  2 Controversies 

  3 Professional recognition 

  4 Personal Background 

  5 Select publications and bibliography   6 References 

  7 External links 

[edit] Research

[edit] Endosymbiotic theory

Lynn Margulis attended the University of Chicago, earned a master's degree from the University

of Wisconsin-Madison in 1960, and received her Ph.D. in 1963 from UC Berkeley. In 1966, as ayoung faculty member at Boston University, she wrote a theoretical paper entitled The Origin of 

 Mitosing Eukaryotic Cells.[2]

 The paper however was "rejected by about fifteen scientific journals," Margulis recalled.[3] It was finally accepted by The Journal of Theoretical Biology and

is considered today a landmark in modern endosymbiotic theory. Although it draws heavily on

symbiosis ideas first put forward by mid-19th century scientists and by Merezhkovsky (1905)and Ivan Wallin (1920) in the early-20th century, Margulis's endosymbiotic theory formulation is

the first to rely on direct microbiological observations (as opposed to paleontological or

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zoological observations which were previously the norm for new works in evolutionary biology).

Weathering constant criticism of her ideas for decades, Margulis is famous for her tenacity inpushing her theory forward, despite the opposition she faced at the time.

The underlying theme of endosymbiotic theory, as formulated in 1966, was interdependence and

cooperative existence of multiple prokaryotic organisms; one organism engulfed another, yetboth survived and eventually evolved over millions of years into eukaryotic cells. Her 1970

book, Origin of Eukaryotic Cells, discusses her early work pertaining to this organelle genesistheory in detail. Currently, her endosymbiotic theory is recognized as the key method by which

some organelles have arisen (see endosymbiotic theory for a discussion) and is widely accepted

by mainstream scientists. The endosymbiotic theory of organogenesis gained strong support inthe 1980s, when the genetic material of  mitochondria and chloroplasts was found to be different

from that of the symbiont's nuclear DNA.[4]

 

In 1995, prominent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins had this to say about Lynn Margulisand her work:

“ I greatly admire Lynn Margulis's sheer courage and stamina in sticking by theendosymbiosis theory, and carrying it through from being an unorthodoxy to an

orthodoxy. I'm referring to the theory that the eukaryotic cell is a symbiotic union of 

primitive prokaryotic cells. This is one of the great achievements of twentieth-centuryevolutionary biology, and I greatly admire her for it.[5]  ” 

[edit] Theory of symbiotic relationships driving evolution

She later formulated a theory to explain how symbiotic relationships between organisms of often

different phyla or kingdoms are the driving force of  evolution. Genetic variation is proposed tooccur mainly as a result of transfer of nuclear information between bacterial cells or viruses andeukaryotic cells. While her organelle genesis ideas are widely accepted, symbiotic relationships

as a current method of introducing genetic variation is something of a fringe idea.

She does, however, hold a negative view of certain interpretations of  Neo-Darwinism, 

excessively focused on inter-organismic competition, as she believes that history will ultimately

 judge them as comprising "a minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawlingreligious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon Biology."[6] She also believes that proponents of the

standard theory "wallow in their zoological, capitalistic, competitive, cost-benefit interpretation

of Darwin - having mistaken him... Neo-Darwinism, which insists on [the slow accrual of 

mutations by gene-level natural selection], is in a complete funk."

[6]

 

She opposes such competition-oriented views of evolution, stressing the importance of symbiotic

or cooperative relationships between species.

[edit] Controversies

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In 2009 Margulis co-authored with seven others a published paper stating "Detailed research that

correlates life histories of symbiotic spirochetes to changes in the immune system of associatedvertebrates is sorely needed" and urging the "reinvestigation of the natural history of 

mammalian, tick-borne, and venereal transmission of spirochetes in relation to impairment of the

human immune system." [7]

 

In 2009, via a then-standard publication-process known as "communicated submission", she was

instrumental in getting the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) to publisha paper by Donald I. Williamson rejecting "the Darwinian assumption that larvae and their adults

evolved from a single common ancestor." [8][9]

 Williamson's paper provoked immediate response

from the scientific community, including a countering paper in PNAS.[10]

 Conrad Labandeira of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History said, "If I was reviewing [Williamson's

paper] I would probably opt to reject it," he says, "but I'm not saying it's a bad thing that this is

published. What it may do is broaden the discussion on how metamorphosis works

and…[on]…the origin of these very radical life cycles." But Duke University insectdevelopmental biologist Fred Nijhout said that the paper was better suited for the " National

 Enquirer than the National Academy." 

[11]

 In September it was announced that PNAS willeliminate communicated submissions in July 2010 but PNAS stated that the decision had nothingto do with the Williamson controversy.[9] 

Margulis has argued that "there's no evidence that HIV is an infectious virus" and that AIDSsymptoms "overlap...completely" with those of  syphilis.[12] 

[edit] Professional recognition

  Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983. 

  Guest Hagey Lecturer, University of Waterloo, 1985[13]

 

  Inducted into the World Academy of Art and Science,[14] the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[15]. 

  Has her papers permanently archived in the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 

  1999 recipient of the William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement. 

  1999 recipient of the National Medal of Science, awarded by President William J.

Clinton. 

  Profiled in Visionaries: The 20th Century's 100 Most Important Inspirational Leaders,

published in 2007. 

  Founded Sciencewriters Books in 2006 with her son Dorion.[16] 

  Was one of thirteen recipients in 2008 of the Darwin-Wallace Medal, heretofore

bestowed every 50 years, by the Linnean Society of London. 

  2009 speaker at the Biological Evolution Facts and Theories Conference, held at thePontifical Gregorian University, Rome aimed at promoting dialogue between

evolutionary biology and Christianity. 

  2010 inductee into the Leonardo DaVinci Society of Thinking[17]

 at the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, AZ.

[edit] Personal Background

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She attended the University of Chicago at age 14 having entered "because she wanted to go and

they let me in".[18]

 

At 19, she married astronomer Carl Sagan. Her children are popular science writer and co-author

Dorion Sagan; software developer and founder of  Sagan Technology Jeremy Sagan; New York 

City criminal defense lawyer Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma; and teacher and author JenniferMargulis.[citation needed ] 

One of her sisters married Nobel Laureate Sheldon Lee Glashow; the other married

mathematician Daniel Kleitman. 

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