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William McElroy, the McCollum–Pratt Institute, and the Transformation of Biology at Johns Hopkins, 1945–1960

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Abstract

In 1948, a dynamic junior member of the Johns Hopkins Biology Department, William McElroy, became the first director of the McCollum–Pratt Institute for the Investigation of Micronutrient Elements. The Institute was founded at the university to further studies into the practicalities of animal nutrition. Ultimately, however, the Institute reflected McElroy’s vision that all biological problems, including nutrition, could be best investigated through basic biochemical and enzyme studies. The Institute quickly became a hub of biochemical research over the following decade, producing foundational work on metabolism and a respected series of symposia. In this paper, I argue that McElroy’s biochemical vantage on biology also permeated the traditionally morphological and embryological Biology Department at Hopkins. Largely due to the activity of McElroy and the Institute, the faculty, course offerings, and research underwent a radical reorientation toward biochemistry and molecular biology in the 1950s, even while maintaining a commitment to developmental biology. While the history of postwar biology is often told as the ascendancy of the “new” biology over “traditional” biology, the case of McElroy and the McCollum–Pratt Institute affords an opportunity for historical examination of biochemical and molecular science as a lens through which all branches of biology at an institution were reconceived and unified.

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Acknowledgements

To Sharon Kingsland for her guidance and support throughout the research and revision of this paper, I extend my great gratitude. In addition, I thank Paul Farber, Manfred D. Laubichler, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and encouragement. Jim Stimpert and the staff of the Ferdinand Hamburger Archives of the Johns Hopkins University were enormously helpful. This paper also benefited from reminiscences and invaluable feedback from several longtime members and former graduate students of the Johns Hopkins Department of Biology: Maurice Bessman, Ludwig Brand, Saul Roseman, Howard Seliger, and Howard Lenhoff. Special thanks to Dr. Bessman for granting me access to his personal collection of departmental photographs. In the spring of 2007, I presented early versions of this material to the following groups and profited greatly from the insightful questions offered by their audiences: the Columbia History of Science Group; the Joint Atlantic Seminar for the History of Biology; and the Colloquia of the Johns Hopkins University Program in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology.

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    Tulley Long

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Long, T. William McElroy, the McCollum–Pratt Institute, and the Transformation of Biology at Johns Hopkins, 1945–1960. J Hist Biol 42, 765–809 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-009-9188-x

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