Wendell Meredith Stanley

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Wendell Meredith Stanley (August 16, 1904 – June 15, 1971) was an American biochemist, virologist, and Nobel laureate. He is best known for his work on the purification and crystallization of viruses, which significantly advanced the field of virology.

Early Life and Education[edit | edit source]

Wendell Meredith Stanley was born in Ridgeville, Indiana. He attended Earlham College, where he received his B.A. in chemistry in 1926. He then went on to earn his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1929.

Career and Research[edit | edit source]

After completing his Ph.D., Stanley worked at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University). It was here that he began his groundbreaking work on viruses. In 1935, Stanley successfully crystallized the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), demonstrating that viruses could be purified and studied in a crystalline form. This work provided the first clear evidence that viruses were composed of nucleic acids and proteins, laying the foundation for modern virology.

Stanley's research on TMV earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946, which he shared with John Howard Northrop and James Batcheller Sumner. His work also contributed to the understanding of the molecular structure of viruses and the development of molecular biology.

Later Life and Legacy[edit | edit source]

In 1948, Stanley joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he continued his research and served as a professor of biochemistry. He was instrumental in the establishment of the university's Virus Laboratory, which later became the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology.

Stanley passed away on June 15, 1971, in Salamanca, Spain. His contributions to the field of virology have had a lasting impact, and he is remembered as a pioneer in the study of viruses.