obituary

W. Maxwell Cowan 1931–2002 Thomas Jessell and Eric Kandel

Max Cowan, one of the founders of mod- retraction of collaterals and the segrega- ern neural science, died on June 30, 2002. tion of ocular dominance columns are In the course of his long career, Max had a controlled by neurotrophic factors. major influence on the scientific scene, both In the course of his long career, Max also through his research contributions to the trained some of the outstanding anatomists fields of neuroanatomy and developmental and developmental neurobiologists of our neurobiology and through his later role as a time, including Ray Guillery, Ted Jones, leader of the national scientific enterprise. Geoff Raismann, Jenny LaVail, David Got- Max was born in Johannesburg, South tlieb, Larry Swanson, Cliff Saper, Gary Africa, and pursued his undergraduate Banker, Dennis O’Leary, David Amaral and training in anatomy at the University of Chiko Asanuma. For his many accom- the Witwatersrand. Then in 1953, at the plishments, Max was elected to the U.S. invitation of the renowned anatomist Wil- National Academy of Science in 1981, and frid Le Gros Clark, Max arrived at Oxford to the Royal Society of London in 1982. Photo: © Paul FettersPhoto: © Paul HHMI for University, where he obtained his M.D. These contributions, which helped revi- and D.Phil degrees. From the 1970s, with Gary Banker, he also talize both neuroanatomy and neural devel- http://www.nature.com/natureneuroscience From the beginning of his career, Max’s pioneered the development of hippocampal opment, would constitute a full career for research was distinguished by his skilled use cell cultures, which have subsequently most people. But the remarkable thing of anatomy to address physiologically rele- proved invaluable for studying the develop- about Max Cowan was that, in addition to vant questions. In the early 1950s, in influ- ment and plasticity of central synapses. his eminence as a researcher, he provided ential experiments with Tom Powell, Max In the years that followed, Max helped national leadership for science in many studied the striatal connections of the to focus modern anatomical methods on other capacities. He was president of the intralaminar nuclei of the thalamus. This some of the classic questions of neural Society for Neuroscience from 1977 to 1978. interest led to a now-classic series of stud- development. Building on the work of Vik- He was the founding editor of both the Jour- ies on centrifugal fibers in the visual system tor Hamburger and Rita Levi-Montalcini, nal of Neuroscience and the Annual Review of the pigeon. He was also among the first Max documented the generality of cell of Neuroscience. From 1968 to 1980, he was to explore the potential of strychnine- death in the developing nervous system. chairman of the Department of Anatomy evoked responses as a way of tracing corti- Strikingly, Max’s studies also revealed that (later Anatomy and Neurobiology) at Wash- cal networks, during a brief period with the development of connections in the cen- ington University in St. Louis, and from William Cobb and Michael Wright at the tral nervous system is accompanied by the 1982 to 1986, he was the vice-president of Institute of Neurology in London. In fur- selective pruning of axons and elimination the Salk Institute, where he established a © Group 2002 Nature Publishing ther work with Powell and Ray Guillery, of synapses. With Dennis O’Leary, for lasting tradition of excellence in develop- Max applied retrograde degeneration tech- example, he showed that cortical neurons mental and systems neuroscience. niques to map the connections of the thal- with callosal projections acquire their final Finally, from 1987 to 2000, Max was amus and hypothalamus. patterns of connectivity through the selec- vice-president and chief scientific officer of In the mid-1960s, Max left Oxford for tive elimination of axonal collaterals dur- the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In the US, eventually settling at Washington ing early postnatal development. this brief appreciation, it is impossible to University in St. Louis. By this time, Max had These two phenomena—cell death and document the full extent of Max’s accom- acquired his longstanding interest in the the elimination of neuronal processes— plishments while at the Institute. He recruit- development of better methods for tracing became major themes of Cowan’s later ed outstanding talent in all areas of science. patterns of anatomical connections, focus- work, as he went on to show that these But beyond this, he created an environment ing initially on the clever application of bio- ‘regressive’ events are likely to result from in which people were encouraged to embark chemistry as an adjunct to more traditional the deprivation of neurotrophic factors. In on bold and innovative experiments. With methods. With David Gottlieb, for example, this way, he introduced a ‘Cowanian’ great prescience, Max anticipated future he followed up on Bernice Grafstein’s early model of brain development that provid- developments in all fields of modern biolo- use of labeled amino acids to study axonal ed the cellular foundation for under- gy, and by promoting these developments, transport. Max saw this as an opportunity standing the role of neurotrophic factors. left a tangible mark on such diverse areas as to develop a systematic radiographic method His work helped to explain, for example, structural biology, cellular imaging, molec- for mapping axonal connections in the CNS, many of the defects in brain development ular neurobiology and, most recently, com- a method that soon became widely used. that were subsequently observed in knock- putational and systems neuroscience. out mice lacking the neurotrophins BDNF Very few people are able to combine a Thomas Jessell and Eric Kandel are at the or NT-3. The perspective that Max intro- productive research career with an effective Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the duced also profoundly influenced our administrative role at the national level. Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, understanding of visual cortex develop- Max was one of these few, and his legacy in Columbia University, New York, New York ment. Many later studies, notably by Lam- each of the areas that were fortunate 10032, USA. berto Maffei, Larry Katz and Carla Shatz, enough to have attracted his interest is sub- e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] have provided persuasive evidence that the stantial and memorable.

nature neuroscience • volume 5 no 9 • september 2002 827