Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) Biologist Who Revolutionized Our View of Early Cell Evolution

COMMENT OBITUARY Lynn Margulis (1938–2011) Biologist who revolutionized our view of early cell evolution.

ynn Margulis was an independent, man who claimed that he was going to find prokaryotes, eukaryotes, mitochondria, and gifted and spirited biologist who life in the Universe. That was Carl Sagan. chloroplasts’, hot off the press. That paper learned as early as the fourth grade to They married when she was 19. She has concluded: “The chloroplasts share a recent L“tell bullshit from … real authentic experi- acknowledged that he had a big intellectual ancestry with the blue-green algae”, and that ence”, as she put it in a 2004 interview. With influence on her, claiming gracefully that it “the mitochondrion shares a recent ancestry courage, intellect, a twinkle in her eyes and would be unfair to say she did it all herself. with certain respiring and photosynthetic considerable fortitude, she changed our view The couple went to the University of bacteria, the Rhodospirillaceae”. Margulis’ of cellular evolution. Wisconsin–Madison, where she obtained proposals for endosymbiotic chloroplast and In 1967, she made the revolution- mitochondrial origins had both been ary case that simple bacteria were proven in the same paper. incorporated into some early cells Her research earned her the US to produce the organelles that let President’s National Medal of Sci- plants photosynthesize and animals ence, the Darwin–Wallace Medal of B. O’CONNOR consume oxygen. This process of the Linnean Society of London, and endosymbiosis altered Earth by pro- election to the US National Academy viding plants for animals to eat and of Sciences and to the Russian Acad- additional oxygen for them to breathe. emy of Natural Sciences (as one of Her success did not come easily. only three American members). She She had to stand up for her ideas and could lecture in several languages accept repeated rejections. She sub- and was a prolific author and popu- mitted her radical paper to a dozen lar speaker. She excelled at balancing journals before it was published. research, teaching and raising four Remarkably, she developed her the- children while leading her field. Her ories without training in molecular second marriage, to crystallographer biology — RNA sequencing was Thomas Margulis, which had begun just being developed, and DNA in 1967, ended in 1980. sequencing was years away. Her dis- Lynn’s sometimes contrary per- covery of the endosymbiotic origins sona was summed up during an of animals and plants was ahead of interview while recalling her school the field. She got there on her own days at Chicago: “Classes were not terms, and her main insights have required, that’s why I went to them been proven correct. all!” She also liked to shock. Accord- Margulis, who died of a stroke ing to Ann Hirsch of the University at home on 22 November, was the of California, Los Angeles, when oldest of four girls born to Leona summarizing bacterial-harbouring, and Morris Alexander in Chicago, nitrogen-fixing root nodules, Lynn Illinois. She described herself as a bad referred to them as providing a place student who had to stand in the corner a lot. her MA in zoology and genetics, and then to for bacterial “food and sex”. Her parents enrolled her in the University the University of California, Berkeley, where My favourite memories of Lynn were of Chicago Laboratory Schools, with their she began a PhD in genetics. Their marriage her lengthy calls to kick ideas around (she unique focus on reading original scientific ended before her doctorate was awarded, and abhorred e-mail). She was always upbeat and literature. Initially, she didn’t like her Lab Lynn moved to Massachusetts in 1963 with ready to explore. Her visit to our home in School and walked out. But after two years her two sons to take up a biology lecture- 2007 was full of adventure and laughter. She back in her local inner-city school, she was ship at Brandeis University in Waltham. She told us about her travels, loved our visit to glad to return to the University of Chicago. received her PhD from Berkeley in 1965, and the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, There, she immersed herself in the works of then moved to Boston University, where she and its travertine fossils, and always had a Isaac Newton and Gregor Mendel. remained for 22 years. There, she published ziplock bag of yerba maté on hand. She’ll be She attributed her scientific success in her paradigm-changing book, Origin of greatly missed. ■ part to one course: MathSci 2. Biologically Eukaryotic Cells (1970). In 1988, she moved oriented, it centred on the material basis of to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. James A. Lake is in the departments of heredity and what connects generations. As Boston University’s Douglas Zook, molecular, cell and developmental biology, MathSci 2, she noted, also contributed to then an undergraduate in one of her classes, and human genetics, University of California, the discovery of the structure of DNA — recalled, it was an emotional moment in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, because James Watson also took the course. 1978 when her ideas on endosymbiosis USA. He became friends with Lynn Margulis When she was 16, while walking up the were confirmed. She strode into class beam- after meeting her at a conference at Woods stairs of Chicago’s Ruth Eckerd Hall, she met ing, holding Robert Schwartz and Margaret Hole in Massachusetts in the 1980s. a tall, handsome, extremely talkative young Dayhoff’s classic paper, ‘Origins of e-mail: [email protected]