The crown of a good n ame

W. Barry Wood, Jr., and Daniel Nathans

Irving Kushner, MD

This page, Dr. Barry Wood, Jr. Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine. Right, Dr. Daniel Nathans. Courtesy of the Bernard Becker Medical Library of Washington University School of Medicine. The crown of a good n ame

Dr. Kushner (AΩA, Washington University in St. Louis, n September 1950, I entered the Washington University 1954) is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at Case Western School of Medicine in St. Louis. During the four years Reserve University School of Medicine. Video interviews of that I was there, it was my good fortune to get to know Dr. Wood and Dr. Nathans from the Leaders in American Itwo extraordinary individuals—W. Barry Wood, Jr., one of Medicine video series are available on our web site: http:// my teachers, and Daniel Nathans, one of my classmates. They alphaomegaalpha.org/leaders.html. came from vastly different backgrounds. Their lives converged during that four-year period, then separated, and later con- verged again. The crown of a good name

­record for Harvard athletes—for collecting more major sport letters (13) than any other Harvard athlete in history, and to tie another— for finishing his course (if he gets four A’s this year) with a record of 16 A’s, one B.2

In addition to detailing his athletic exploits, the article indicated that when he was awarded the Francis Burr scholarship, which goes to Harvard’s best student athlete, he tried to persuade the au- thorities to give the money to someone else. When they refused, he took the scholarship and gave the money to a student athlete who needed it.2 In his junior year, Wood encountered chem- istry professor James B. Conant, future president of Harvard, who suggested that he might want to participate in an ongoing study by Laurence J. Henderson, investigating the relation between blood count and physical exercise.3 Wood later recalled the encounter:

[Mr. Conant] said that he knew just where I ought to work on my honor’s thesis, with Professor L. J. Henderson. Well, I had read Henderson’s Fitness of the Environment, which was a book that anyone concentrating in bio- chemistry would read, and I had also read his monograph on the blood, which was his great Barry Wood on the cover of Time, November 23, 1931. Courtesy of Time/Life Inc. work as a scientist, and the idea of working with L. J. Henderson just seemed too good to be true.4 W. Barry Wood, Jr. When I arrived in St. Louis, Barry Wood had been chairman This encounter resulted in the first of Wood’s many publica- of the Department of Medicine for eight years. He was born tions dealing with white blood cells. in 1910 to parents from affluent, established Boston families. After graduating from Harvard in 1932, Barry Wood entered His father, Harvard class of 1902, was a cotton broker and a medical school at Johns Hopkins, serving his medical resi- Harvard trustee. As a student at the nearby Milton Academy, dency there as well. The chief of the medical service, Warfield the young Barry Wood displayed no special interest in science Longcope, encouraged his residents to select a specialty area or medicine. He entered Harvard in 1928. In those days, fresh- to study in depth. He called Wood’s attention to the work men were not eligible to play varsity sports. Once he became of Oswald Avery, the great bacteriologist at the Rockefeller a sophomore, however, he was unstoppable—his record was Institute,5 and arranged for him to visit Avery in New York. spectacular. He earned ten varsity letters; three as center on Wood later described his visit as follows: the hockey team, three as first baseman on the baseball team, and three as quarterback of the football team. He was one of I can still remember to this day going into Avery’s office. He the most celebrated football players of his time and was named sat me down at a table. . . . He was a tiny little man, and he first team All-American quarterback in 1931. He also found had on a long white coat, and he paced the floor. He told time to earn a letter in tennis, and was a member of the Davis me the whole story of the pneumococcus capsule and the Cup squad.1 polysaccharides in such a way that I was just entranced by it, He appeared on the cover of Time magazine on November and I went back with great enthusiasm for getting into this 23, 1931. The accompanying article described him: infectious disease field.4

Harvard’s Barry Wood is tall (6 ft. 1 in.), slim (173 lb.), a Phi He went on: Beta Kappa. . . . Wood has a chance this year to pass one

10 The Pharos/Summer 2013 Dr. W. Barry Wood, Jr., examining a patient. Behind the patient is Dr. Robert J. Glaser. Courtesy of the Bernard Becker Medical Library of Washington University School of Medicine.

When I went to visit Avery . . . he pointed out that there are Wood arranged to share the clinical and administrative two kinds of investigators. There are investigators who go responsibilities of department head in St. Louis with his col- around picking up surface nuggets, and wherever they spot a league, Carl V. Moore. Each was in charge of those duties for six surface nugget of gold, they grab it and put it in their collec- months of the year, allowing a half year for full-time research. tion. And, he said, there is another kind of investigator who Wood largely focused on the mechanisms involved in recovery is not interested in these surface nuggets, but rather is inter- from diseases produced by the pneumococcus or related micro- ested in digging a deep hole in one place, hoping to hit a vein. organisms, with particular emphasis on the role of phagocytic Of course, if he strikes a vein of gold he makes a tremendous leucocytes. He also began studies on the mechanisms that advance. Dr. Avery was such a wonderful example of this caused fever.1 second type of investigator.4 Within a few years Wood had established an outstanding teaching and research medical service at Barnes Hospital, at- Wood returned to Harvard as a fellow in the Bacteriology tracting an excellent young faculty and a steady flow of superior Department, working with John Enders on the role of white house officers. A meticulous clinician, his lectures were exciting blood cells in recovery from pneumococcal pneumonia, then models of clarity. returned to Hopkins as an assistant in the Department of Many of those who trained under him remembered him Medicine. In 1942, at the amazingly young age of thirty-two—a vividly. Sam Guze, who started in internal medicine but later mere six years after graduating from medical school—he was became chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, said, offered the position of professor and head of the Department of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. My beginning thoughts about an academic career were

The Pharos/Summer 2013 11 The crown of a good name

­stimulated by Barry Wood. There was an aristocratic aura and assumed the position of director of the Department of about Barry Wood. . . . He was a gentleman born. I don’t Microbiology. Over the next decade he carried out extensive know what his feelings were, but he treated everybody with research largely dealing with the role of leucocytes in the courtesy, refinement, and good manners. I don’t think I’ve pathogenesis of fever. The following comments were written by ever had a better clinical teacher. He could take any kind of an anonymous reviewer for The Pharos who had been one of problem and turn it into the most interesting, challenging Wood’s students during this time: case you can imagine. . . . Barry had the ability to bring out the very best in people. What impressed me most was that this incredibly gifted man, Everybody wanted to meet his high standard.6 who could have been whatever he wanted to be—a giant of Wall Street, a captain of industry, a powerful politician-­ Dan Nathans: statesman—opted for the modest lifestyle of a physician- scientist, driving to work in his Ford Falcon and putting the Barry Wood was a very unusual man. He had a way of name of his laboratory technician, Mary Ruth Smith, on paper inspiring younger colleagues that is really unsurpassed in after paper in The Journal of Experimental Medicine. my experience . . . he had just tremendous skill in bringing out the best in students, of not only arousing our interest in Some of the advisory and administrative activities Wood medicine but just bringing out the best performance, mostly participated in during those years included membership in by his example.7 the National Academy of Sciences, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, the Armed Forces Epidemiologic Board, Robert J. Glaser, who served as a house officer and young the Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, the Board faculty member under Wood, and later became the executive of Overseers of Harvard College, president of the American secretary of Alpha Omega Alpha and editor of The Pharos: Society of Clinical Investigation, and president of the American Association of Physicians. Barry Wood was a remarkable guy. He was, I thought, one of He appeared in Time magazine again in March 1971: the two or three best teachers I’ve ever seen. He was a very good clinician and allegedly hadn’t been when he first came. Died. Dr. Barry Wood, 60, onetime grid star and noted . . . He was in some ways a very intense sort of guy. People bacteriologist; of a heart attack; in Boston. Wood was one didn’t realize that. He could be very pleasant and charming, of the first to publish a paper on penicillin. Later he led in but when his door was closed it was really closed. He worked research on the mechanism by which white blood cells fight very, very hard. invading organisms. Wood was named vice president of Johns . . . . He was great fun. He was adored by the house staff Hopkins University and hospital in 1955, heading its depart- but also highly respected—there was a certain line between ment of microbiology from 1959 until his death. He was to them.8 have received the Kober award, the Association of American Physicians’ highest tribute, in May.12 And Ken King, later dean of the medical school for nearly twenty-five years: “Barry Wood dazzled people, he was so good In the mid 1960s Wood had been primarily responsible for at everything he did.” 9 assembling a team of outstanding authors to collaborate on the After thirteen years in St. Louis, Wood returned to Johns landmark textbook Microbiology, which covered the fields of Hopkins in 1955 in the dual role of professor of Microbiology bacteriology, virology, immunology, and molecular genetics. and vice president of the university and the hospital, appar- The frontispiece of the second edition showed his picture ac- ently motivated by his love for basic research and the challenge companied by a box labeled “In Memoriam.” Within it was that the administrative job presented. The purpose of the lat- written: ter position was to coordinate the Schools of Medicine and Public Health and the hospital and to revise the medical school W. Barry Wood, Jr. was one of those rare individuals who curriculum.10 grace all the people and institutions with whom they come The next year, Sports Illustrated ran a feature titled: “1931–56: in contact. His qualities of leadership, manifest in his un- Men of Achievement.” It described twenty-five men, outstand- dergraduate performance as an outstanding scholar-athlete, ing football players twenty-five years earlier, who had subse- led rapidly to positions of major responsibility in clinical quently gone on to successful careers. Barry Wood was the only medicine and administration, but his lifelong interest in bac- unanimous choice of the Silver Anniversary judges.11 In 1980 he terial infections eventually drew him back to microbiology. was posthumously inducted into the College Football of Fame. This interest also led to the inception of this book, for he Wood found the administrative position a nonjob—a re- was primarily responsible for gathering its original team of dundant job. After five years he resigned the vice presidency authors. We were all strongly influenced by his devotion to

12 The Pharos/Summer 2013 He was a great teacher, for whom teaching was a sacred trust. Every student was given special care . . . Giving everything his best, he inspired others to do their best; and so he led by example, softly.1p401

I can personally attest to this. In 1957 I was a clinical associate at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, wrestling with what professional path I should pursue. I turned to Dr. Wood, not far away at Johns Hopkins. Although I was no longer his student, he very graciously agreed to see me, so I drove up to Baltimore and met with him. I told him that I was at- tracted to a career in academic medicine, loved clini- cal medicine and teaching, but was insecure about my prospects of succeeding in research. He suggested that I go into a basic science lab for a couple of years. If I liked it, I could stay with it or indeed, bring those skills back with me to a clinical department. If it didn’t work out, I could always go back to clinical medicine, the richer for the experience. In the end, I followed his advice. And this by his close colleague Walsh McDermott:

Barry had a truly extraordinary ability to bring himself into the lives of others and make them the better for it. . . . It seemed . . . that he couldn’t bear to see you not share the fun . . . of high quality.1p403

The Basic Science Building on the Johns Hopkins Medical School campus is named in his honor, and Johns Hopkins annually bestows the W. Barry Wood Jr. Award for Excellence in Teaching on the teachers voted by the medical students in their preclinical years to have been most inspirational and/or effective.

Daniel Nathans Dr. Daniel Nathans working in the lab. When I arrived in St. Louis in 1950, my Columbia Courtesy of the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. University classmate Gil Hermann and I unpacked and immediately took a stroll around the hospital/ ­microbiology and by his conviction that its advance as a pure medical school complex to get to know the neighbor- science is inseparable from its role as one of the foundation hood. Toward the end we separated, and I went back alone to stones of modern medicine. With his death, his coauthors and the small dormitory, shared at the time by the medical and the community of biomedical scientists have lost an excep- dental schools, at 4949 Forest Park Boulevard. A short fellow, tional source of wisdom and judgment.13 also newly arrived, was standing in front of the building and we introduced ourselves. His name was Dan Nathans, from The chairman of the Department of Medicine at Hopkins, A. Wilmington, Delaware. His parents were poor Russian Jewish McGehee Harvey, said at the time: immigrants—his father had owned a small grocery store which he lost during the Great Depression and had been unemployed That he was a rare human being was clear to all who knew for some time. He later recalled his childhood: him. What were the ingredients of his greatness? Barry aimed constantly for excellence in everything he undertook—in I remember our house was in terrible shape; rain leaking in, research, in teaching, in administration and in sports. He ceilings falling down. We just didn’t have the money to fix it had ability in abundance and the self-discipline to succeed. up. I learned later from my mother that she and my father

The Pharos/Summer 2013 13 Dr. Daniel Nathans visiting with Dr. Oliver Lowry. Courtesy of the Bernard Becker Medical Library of Washington University School of Medicine.

often went hungry to provide enough for the children.7 interest in research.7 Dan was elected to membership in Alpha Omega Alpha Nathans had graduated from the University of Delaware as as a third-year medical student and served as president of a premed with top grades—he got to class by streetcar or by the Washington University chapter during his senior year. At hitchhiking. Dan was the youngest of eight children—his fa- that point he applied for an internship in internal medicine at ther’s last chance to have a doctor in the family.14 However, he Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York, one of the most told me, the only way he could afford to go to medical school sought-after positions in the country. The chief of that service was if he got a full scholarship, so he had applied everywhere for was the redoubtable Robert F. Loeb. Purnell Choppin later re- such a scholarship. Only one school—Washington University— lated that after reviewing the applications, Dr. Loeb telephoned had given him one, so here he was. He planned to become a Barry Wood: “Barry, I know this guy Nathans is good, but is family physician.7 he good enough to be an intern at Presbyterian?” Barry Wood Washington University was a biomedical powerhouse at that replied: “Bob, if he’s not good enough, nobody’s good enough.” time, with a major emphasis on basic research. The medical Dan’s internship at Presbyterian Hospital was followed by school faculty during the four years that I was there included two years as a clinical associate at the National Cancer Institute six past or future Nobel prize winners: Joseph Erlanger, Carl in Bethesda. I was at the NIH at the same time. A high school and Gerty Cori, Arthur Kornberg, Earl W. Sutherland, Jr., and classmate of my wife’s, Joanne Gomberg, was working as a law- Robert F. Furchgott. Even the Department of Psychiatry, in an yer in Washington, and Enid and I invited her and Dan to din- era when most academic departments of psychiatry had a psy- ner one evening. Several months later they let us know that our choanalytic orientation, was chaired by a pioneer in biological matchmaking efforts had been successful. It was a most happy psychiatry, Edwin Gildea.5 And for medical students, it was marriage, blessed with three children, Eli, Jeremy, and Ben. a very intense pressure cooker. It did not take long for Dan’s After the NCI stint, Dan returned to Presbyterian Hospital capabilities to become apparent. By Christmas break in 1950 it as a resident in internal medicine. He soon concluded that was already becoming clear that Dan was the smartest guy in his future lay in research and teaching rather than in medical the class. practice, so when he completed his medical training, to the Not a Nobel Prize winner, but an outstanding biochem- dismay of his father, he left clinical medicine and began a basic ist nonetheless, was Oliver Lowry, head of the Department research career.14 He spent the next three years as a research of Pharmacology. Dr. Lowry felt that all students should get associate in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Fritz Lipmann at a taste of laboratory research, and set up a program in which the then Rockefeller Institute, working in the just emerging field everyone in the class worked on a small research project over of molecular genetics, after which he looked for a university a six-week period. In addition, Dan spent a summer working research and teaching post. Barry Wood, now chairman of the in Dr. Lowry’s laboratory. These experiences stimulated his Department of Microbiology at Johns Hopkins, jumped at the

14 The Pharos/Summer 2013 Dr. Daniel Nathans and Dr. Hamilton Smith in the lab. Courtesy of the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.

chance to recruit Dan to his department. and expression of genes of higher animals.14 Dan’s initial work at Johns Hopkins dealt mostly with the mo- Following Barry Wood’s early death in 1971, Johns Hopkins lecular mechanisms that underlie virus-induced animal cancers. instituted a nationwide search for a worthy director of the He was described during this period as “a one-man Division of Department of Microbiology. They consulted a number of the Genetics.” In 1969, while working on the SV40 tumor virus as nation’s outstanding scientists, including James D. Watson, a visiting scholar at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, he heard who with Francis Crick had solved the structure of DNA. I was from his colleague Hamilton O. Smith that Smith had isolated told by Dick Johnson that Watson said something to the effect an enzyme that could cut DNA—a restriction enzyme. Smith that Hopkins did not have to look far, since Dan Nathans was later abandoned the field of restriction enzymes and went on to already there. So Dan succeeded Barry Wood as director of other research, but Dan decided to see if these enzymes might the department in 1972. In 1978, to the surprise of practically prove helpful in confronting some of the challenges facing mo- no one, Dan shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine lecular genetics. He and his graduate student Kathleen Danna with Hamilton O. Smith and Werner Arber “for the discovery discovered that the restriction endonuclease from Hemophilus of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of influenzae cut SV40 DNA in ten distinct places, creating eleven molecular genetics.” 15 The next year, our medical school class well-defined fragments.14 held its twenty-fifth reunion. Dan and I had lunch together, and His colleague Thomas Kelly later observed, then he excused himself, explaining that he had an appointment with his research mentor of nearly three decades earlier, Oliver Clearly, he must have had a vision at the very beginning of Lowry. this that just the simple idea of being able to separate the frag- During the mid 1990s, there was great turmoil at Hopkins. ments of . . . DNA into specific pieces would have enormous Severe financial pressures seriously strained the relationship applications.14 between Johns Hopkins Hospital and the medical school. As reported at the time in the Baltimore Sun, the hospital presi- Indeed, this early work was one of the cornerstones for the dent James A. Block and the dean of the School of Medicine, ensuing revolution in molecular biology. Using restriction en- Dr. Michael E. Johns, quarreled over power and issues affecting zymes, it was possible to produce a physical map of the SV40 their separate jurisdictions. Although the hospital and the uni- virus, which then allowed the mapping of the origin of replica- versity had always had separate governance, they had neverthe- tion and the location of the SV40 genes. Restriction enzymes less coexisted and flourished for a century. The task that Barry laid the groundwork for mapping of the human genome, and al- Wood had come to Hopkins to resolve—bringing them closer lowed informative mutants to be made by deleting one or more together—had then been so trivial that he had abandoned it. specific fragments, allowed the assembly of genes in new com- Now, however, financial pressures had caused conflict between binations, and opened up new avenues to study the organization the hospital and the medical school to become extreme.16

The Pharos/Summer 2013 15 The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1978 was awarded jointly to Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans and Hamilton O. Smith "for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics.” Photos: Copyright © The Nobel Foundation

In the midst of this turmoil, after only five years in his post, that trustees from both the university and the Health System the president of the university, William C. Richardson, resigned could collegially move forward and create a new governance to become president of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. It is dif- structure.19 ficult to believe that the turbulence on the medical campus did not play a role in his decision. Dan Nathans, universally re- On April 8, 1996, the Johns Hopkins trustees announced garded at the time as “the heart and soul” of Hopkins, was then that William Brody, provost of the University of Minnesota asked to serve as interim president of the University. Dr. Johns Academic Health Center, would be the next president of the recalled: “He was the wise man of the medical center.” 17p338 university, and Dan gladly returned to his lab. Dan accepted the interim presidency “because I feel so Dan Nathans died of acute leukemia on November 16, 1999. strongly about Johns Hopkins University. . . . I’ve felt extraor- At the time, Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome dinarily privileged to be a faculty member here, I owe the project, stated, university a great deal. I think it’s important to have a smooth transition to keep the momentum going.” 18 He indicated that It’s fair to say we are all standing on Dan Nathans’ shoul- he was not a candidate to succeed Dr. Richardson, but also that ders and are continuing to do so. . . . The work that he did in he did not intend to be simply a caretaker. “There are going to the 1970s made it possible for us to dream the dreams that be real problems and real decisions to be made even before a we do now.17p338 long-term president is on board,” he said.18 A committee of leading trustees concluded that the exist- Two months later, A Tribute to the Memory of Daniel ing system of governance was no longer viable and that a truly Nathans was held by Johns Hopkins. There were ten speakers unified organization had to be created. In meetings described who had known him in various capacities. Most of them said as “intense and fractious” an entirely new structure was crafted: pretty much the same thing. Thus, university president William Johns Hopkins Medicine. Its executive committee would be Brody: chaired by the president of the university, who would appoint a single individual to be the leader of both the hospital and the Dan Nathans was an extraordinary human being. He was medical school.16 brilliant, of course, and his scientific work sparked the ongo- Morris Offit, the chairman of the board of Johns Hopkins ing revolution in biotechnology and genetics. But, as one who at the time, felt that the only reason the plan was accepted was had the privilege of knowing Dan well, I was always most because of Dan’s moral authority. He is quoted as saying that impressed with the man—modest, soft-spoken, unassum- without Nathans, the change in governance would not have ing, even self-effacing. The trustees knew just where to turn occurred. when they sought someone with the wisdom to guide Johns Hopkins through an interim in the presidency five years ago. It was because of everyone’s extraordinary respect for Dan True to form, Dan selflessly stepped back from the laboratory

16 The Pharos/Summer 2013 and the science he loved so he could serve the university.19 American Medicine video series. Menlo Park (CA): Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society; 1971. And Tom Kelly, director of the Department of Molecular 5. Kushner I, Samols D. Oswald Avery and the pneumococcus. Biology and Genetics: The Pharos Spring 2011; 74: 14–18. 6. Hunt M, interviewer. Samuel B. Guze, 1994. Washington He was universally recognized as an especially creative and University School of Medicine Oral History Project OH066. St. influential scientist, one of those who set in motion the great Louis (MO): Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington revolution in biology that has taken place over the last several University School of Medicine; 1994. http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/ decades. However, many of us will most remember him for oral/interviews/guze1994.html. the personal qualities that he exemplified. Although he had 7. Schlesinger S, interviewer. Daniel Nathans, 1979. Washing- reached the pinnacle of profession, he was a gentle and mod- ton University School of Medicine Oral History Project OH038. St. est man with a warm spirit of generosity. He took as much Louis (MO): Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington pleasure in the success of his junior colleagues as he did in University School of Medicine; 1979. http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/ his own . . .19 oral/transcripts/nathans.html. 8. Anderson PG, interviewer. Robert J. Glaser, 1985. Washing- It was announced that afternoon that Johns Hopkins was es- ton University School of Medicine Oral History Project OH062. St. tablishing the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Louis (MO): Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives, Washington named for Victor McKusick and Dan Nathans. Victor McKusick, University School of Medicine; 1985. http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/ Chairman of the Department of Medicine for thirteen years, is oral/interviews/glaser.html. regarded as the father of clinical genetic medicine. A dinner 9. O’Connor C. First-class teachers: Setting an example for was held that night and Dr. McKusick was seated to my right. compassionate patient care: Carl V. Moore. Outlook 2003; 40: 16–18. He confided in me that Johns Hopkins had originally wanted 10. Harvey AM, Brieger GH, Abrams SL, McKusick VA. A Model to name it the Nathans-McKusick Institute, but that Dan had of Its Kind: A Centennial History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins. Vol- insisted that Victor McKusick’s name come first. ume I. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press; 1989. Johns Hopkins established an endowed Daniel Nathans 11. 1931–56: Men of achievement. Sports Illustrated 1956 Professorship in Molecular Biology and Genetics and, in 2005, Dec 24. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/ named one of the medical school’s four colleges after Nathans. MAG1131296/1/index.htm. And I’m pleased to add that a Class of 1954 Scholarship Fund 12. Milestones, Mar. 22, 1971. Time 1971 Mar 22. http://www.time. in Memory of Daniel Nathans has been established at the com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904932,00.html. Washington University School of Medicine. 13. Davis BD, Dulbecco R, Eisen HN, Ginsberg HS, Wood WB Jr, McCarty M. Microbiology. Second edition. Hagerstown (MD): The crown of a good name Harper & Row; 1973. Almost two millenia ago, Rabbi Shim’on, as quoted in the 14. Brownlee C. Danna and Nathans: Restriction enzymes and the Talmud, said, “There are three crowns: the crown of Torah, the boon to modern molecular biology. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2005; crown of priesthood, and the crown of kingship. But the crown 102: 5909. of a good name is superior to them all.” I think all would agree 15. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1978. Werner Ar- that Barry Wood and Dan Nathans have left behind legacies of ber, Daniel Nathans, Hamilton O. Smith. http://www.nobelprize.org/ very good names indeed. nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1978/nathans.html. 16. Kastor JA. Governance of Teaching Hospitals: Turmoil at Penn Acknowledgments and Hopkins. Baltimore (MD): Johns Hopkins University Press; 2004. I am grateful for invaluable input from Joanne Nathans and for the 17. Danna KJ. Daniel Nathans: 30 October 1928–16 November helpful suggestions of David Samols and Professor P. K. Saha. 1999. Proc Am Philos Soc 2010; 154: 337–54. http://www.amphilsoc. org/sites/default/files/1540309Nathans.pdf. References 18. Nathans named Johns Hopkins interim president. Headlines@ 1. Hirsch JG. William Barry Wood, Jr. 1910–1971. Washington Hopkins: Johns Hopkins University News Releases 1995 Apr 21. http:// (DC): National Academy of Sciences; 1980. http://books.nap.edu/ www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/newpres/nathrel.html. html/biomems/wwood.pdf. 19. Noted Hopkins molecular biologist, Daniel Nathans dies. 2. Sport: Football, Nov. 23, 1931. Time 1931 Nov 23. http://www. http://esgweb1.nts.jhu.edu/press/1999/NOV99/991116.HTM. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,742696,00.html 3. Ballard FL Jr. William Barry Wood: Silhouette. The Harvard The author’s address is: Crimson 1963 Jan 8. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/1/8/ 3330 Warrensville Center Road, #706 william-barry-wood-pwilliam-barry-wood/. Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122-3792 4. Glaser RJ, interviewer. W. D. Barry Wood, Jr, MD. Leaders in E-mail: [email protected]

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