Salvador Luria

Salvador Edward Luria(bornSalvatore Luria;August 13, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an Italianmicrobiologist,later anaturalized U.S. citizen.He won theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicinein 1969, withMax DelbrückandAlfred Hershey,for their discoveries on the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses. Salvador Luria also showed that bacterial resistance to viruses (phages) is genetically inherited.

Salvador Luria
Luriac.1969
Born	Salvatore Luria August 13, 1912(1912-08-13) Turin,Kingdom of Italy
Died	February 6, 1991(1991-02-06)(aged 78) Lexington, Massachusetts,U.S.
Nationality	Italian American (since 1950)
Alma mater	University of Turin
Spouse	Zella Luria ​ (m.1945)​
Children	1
Awards	John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship(1942) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine(1969) Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize(1969)
Scientific career
Fields	Molecular biology
Institutions	Columbia University Indiana University University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Doctoral students	James D. Watson Jon Kabat-Zinn

Biography

Early life

Luria was born Salvatore Luria inTurin,Italy to an influential ItalianSephardi Jewishfamily. His parents were Davide and Ester (Sacerdote) Luria.He attended the medical school at theUniversity of Turinstudying withGiuseppe Levi.There, he met two other futureNobellaureates:Rita Levi-MontalciniandRenato Dulbecco.He graduated from theUniversity of Turinin 1935 and never got a master's degree or a PhD as they were not contemplated by the Italian high educational system (which, on the other hand, was very selective). From 1936 to 1937, Luria served his required time in the Italian army as a medical officer. He then took classes inradiologyat theUniversity of Rome.Here, he was introduced toMax Delbrück's theories on thegeneas a molecule and began to formulate methods for testing genetic theory with thebacteriophages,virusesthat infectbacteria.

In 1938, he received a fellowship to study in the United States, where he intended to work with Delbrück. Soon after Luria received the award,Benito Mussolini'sfascistregime banned Jews from academic research fellowships. Without funding sources for work in the U.S. or Italy, Luria left his home country for Paris, France in 1938. As theNaziGerman armies invaded France in 1940, Luria fled on bicycle toMarseillewhere he received an immigrationvisato the United States.

Phage research

Salvador Luria withEsther Lederbergat the 1953 Cold Spring Harbor Symposium. In the background areAaron Novick,Bruce Stocker, Haig Papazian and Geraldine Lindegren.

Luria arrived in New York City on September 12, 1940, and soon changed his first and middle names. With the help of physicistEnrico Fermi,whom he knew from his time at the University of Rome, Luria received aRockefeller Foundationfellowship atColumbia University.He soon met Delbrück and Hershey, and they collaborated on experiments atCold Spring Harbor Laboratoryand in Delbrück's lab atVanderbilt University.

His famous experiment with Delbrück in 1943,known as theLuria–Delbrück experiment,demonstrated statistically that inheritance in bacteria must followDarwinianrather thanLamarckianprinciples and thatmutantbacteria occurring randomly can still bestow viral resistance without the virus being present. The idea that natural selection affects bacteria has profound consequences, for example, it explains how bacteria developantibioticresistance.

Luria and Latarjet in 1947 published a quantitative analysis on the effect ofultravioletirradiation onbacteriophagemultiplication during intracellular growth.During the early course of infection they found an increase in bacteriophage resistance to ultraviolet irradiation and then later a decrease. At the time this pattern, known as the Luria-Laterjet effect, was published little was known about the central role ofDNAin biology. Later work established that multiple specificDNA repairpathways, encoded by the infecting bacteriophage, contribute to the increase in UV resistance early in infection.

From 1943 to 1950, he worked atIndiana University.His first graduate student wasJames D. Watson,who went on to discover the structure ofDNAwithFrancis Crick.In January 1947, Luria became anaturalized citizenof the United States.

In 1950, Luria moved to theUniversity of Illinois Urbana–Champaign.In the early 1950s, Luria and Giuseppe Bertani discovered the phenomenon ofhost-controlled restrictionand modification of a bacterial virus: a culture ofE. colican significantly reduce the production of phages grown in other strains; however, once the phage become established in that strain, they also become restricted in their ability to grow in other strains.It was later discovered by other researchers that bacteria produceenzymesthat cut viral DNA at particular sequences but not the bacteria's own DNA, which is protected bymethylation.These enzymes became known asrestriction enzymesand developed into one of the main molecular tools inmolecular biology.

Luria won theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicinein 1969, withMax DelbrückandAlfred Hershey,for their discoveries on the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses.

Later work

In 1959, he became chair of Microbiology at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT). At MIT, he switched his research focus from phages tocell membranesandbacteriocins.While on sabbatical in 1963 to study at theInstitut Pasteurin Paris, he found that bacteriocins impair the function of cell membranes. Returning to MIT, his lab discovered that bacteriocins achieve this impairment by forming holes in the cell membrane, allowingionsto flow through and destroy theelectrochemical gradientof cells. In 1972, he became chair of TheCenter for Cancer Researchat MIT. The department he established included future Nobel Prize winnersDavid Baltimore,Susumu Tonegawa,Phillip Allen SharpandH. Robert Horvitz.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Luria received a number of awards and recognitions. He was elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciencesin 1959.He was named a member of theNational Academy of Sciencesin 1960.In 1964, he was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society.From 1968 to 1969, he served as president of theAmerican Society for Microbiology.In 1969, he was awarded theLouisa Gross Horwitz PrizefromColumbia Universitytogether withMax Delbrück,co-winner with Luria of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1969. In the U.S. he won the 1974National Book Awardin Sciencefor hispopular sciencebookLife: the Unfinished Experiment and received theNational Medal of Sciencein 1991.

Political activism

Throughout his career, Luria was an outspoken political advocate.He joined withLinus Paulingin 1957 to protest against nuclear weapon testing. Luria was an opponent of theVietnam Warand a supporter oforganized labor.In the 1970s, he was involved in debates overgenetic engineering,advocating a compromise position of moderate oversight and regulation rather than the extremes of a complete ban or full scientific freedom. Due to his political involvement, he wasblacklistedfrom receiving funding from theNational Institutes of Healthfor a short time in 1969.

Noam Chomskydescribes him as a friend, and claims that Luria attempted to influence Jewish American writerElie Wiesel's public stance on Israel.

Death

Luria died inLexington, Massachusettsof a heart attack on 6 February, 1991 at the age of 78.

See also

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates
• Phage group
• Luria–Delbrück experiment

References

• "The Salvador E. Luria Papers".Profiles in Science.National Library of Medicine.Retrieved2007-09-22.

External links

• The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
• The Salvador E. Luria Papers- Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine
• Salvador E. Luriaon Nobelprize.org