Vernon Ingram
Encyclopedia
Vernon M. Ingram, Ph.D., FRS (19 May 1924 — 17 August 2006) was a German American
professor
of biology
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
.
. When he was 14, he and his family left Nazi Germany
because of their opposition to Nazism
and settled in England
.
During the Second World War
, Ingram worked at a chemical factory producing drugs for the war effort and at night studied at Birkbeck College
at the University of London
. He received a bachelor's degree in chemistry
in 1945 and a PhD in organic chemistry in 1949.
After receiving his doctorate, Ingram worked at postdoctoral appointments at the Rockefeller Institute and Yale University
. At Rockefeller, he worked with Moses Kunitz on crystallizing proteins. While at Yale, he studied peptide chemistry with Joseph Fruton. In 1952, Ingram returned to England and started working at the Cavendish Laboratory
at the University of Cambridge
, studying protein chemistry.
In 1956, Ingram, John A. Hunt, and Antony O. W. Stretton
determined that the change in the hemoglobin
molecule in sickle cell disease and trait was the substitution of the glutamic acid
in position 6 of the β-chain of the normal protein by valine
. Ingram used electrophoresis
and chromatography
to show that the amino acids of normal human and sickle cell anemia hemoglobin
s differed due to a single mutated gene. Much of this work was done with the support of Max Perutz
and Francis Crick
. Ingram won the William Allan Award
from the American Society of Human Genetics
in 1967.
This was the first time a researcher demonstrated that a single amino acid exchange in a protein can cause a disease or disorder. As a result, Vernon Ingram is sometimes referred to as "The father of Molecular Medicine."
Ingram joined the MIT faculty in 1958, intending to stay for only one year. He found that he enjoyed it there so much that he stayed on. While at MIT, Ingram collaborated with Paul Marks of Columbia University
on hemoglobin research. He was also interested in embryonic hemoglobin and how it differed from that of adults.
By the 1980s, Ingram became interested in neuroscience and especially Alzheimer's Disease
. His interest was sparked by the work his second wife, Elizabeth (Beth), was doing with mentally retarded people in the Boston area. She had heard that Down's Syndrome was a disease of the neurofilaments; this turned out not to be the cause, but it was noted that people with Down's Syndrome did develop Alzheimer's Disease by the time they were 40.
After retirement, Ingram continued his research, maintaining a small laboratory at MIT. He and his wife, Beth, were housemasters of Ashdown House at MIT for 16 years. Asteroid
6285 Ingram
is named in their honor.
He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences
in 2002.
Ingram died in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 17, 2006 of injuries stemming from a fall.
Barbara J. Blanchard, Albert Chen, Leslie M. Rozeboom, Kate A. Stafford, Peter Weigele, and Vernon M. Ingram
PNAS 2004 101: 14326-14332
Obituary of Vernon Ingram from the MIT News Office
German American
German Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
.
Biography
Ingram was born in Breslau, Lower SilesiaProvince of Lower Silesia
The Province of Lower Silesia was a province of the Free State of Prussia from 1919 to 1945. Between 1938 and 1941 it was reunited with Upper Silesia as the Silesia Province. The capital of Lower Silesia was Breslau...
. When he was 14, he and his family left Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
because of their opposition to Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
and settled in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
During the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Ingram worked at a chemical factory producing drugs for the war effort and at night studied at Birkbeck College
Birkbeck, University of London
Birkbeck, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is...
at the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
. He received a bachelor's degree in chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
in 1945 and a PhD in organic chemistry in 1949.
After receiving his doctorate, Ingram worked at postdoctoral appointments at the Rockefeller Institute and Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. At Rockefeller, he worked with Moses Kunitz on crystallizing proteins. While at Yale, he studied peptide chemistry with Joseph Fruton. In 1952, Ingram returned to England and started working at the Cavendish Laboratory
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teaching laboratory....
at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, studying protein chemistry.
In 1956, Ingram, John A. Hunt, and Antony O. W. Stretton
Antony Stretton
Antony "Tony" Oliver Ward Stretton, Ph.D. is a neuroscientist, faculty member of the , and the John Bascom Professor of at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is married to fellow scientist, Philippa Claude.Tony worked with Vernon M...
determined that the change in the hemoglobin
Hemoglobin
Hemoglobin is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein in the red blood cells of all vertebrates, with the exception of the fish family Channichthyidae, as well as the tissues of some invertebrates...
molecule in sickle cell disease and trait was the substitution of the glutamic acid
Glutamic acid
Glutamic acid is one of the 20 proteinogenic amino acids, and its codons are GAA and GAG. It is a non-essential amino acid. The carboxylate anions and salts of glutamic acid are known as glutamates...
in position 6 of the β-chain of the normal protein by valine
Valine
Valine is an α-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCHCH2. L-Valine is one of 20 proteinogenic amino acids. Its codons are GUU, GUC, GUA, and GUG. This essential amino acid is classified as nonpolar...
. Ingram used electrophoresis
Electrophoresis
Electrophoresis, also called cataphoresis, is the motion of dispersed particles relative to a fluid under the influence of a spatially uniform electric field. This electrokinetic phenomenon was observed for the first time in 1807 by Reuss , who noticed that the application of a constant electric...
and chromatography
Chromatography
Chromatography is the collective term for a set of laboratory techniques for the separation of mixtures....
to show that the amino acids of normal human and sickle cell anemia hemoglobin
Hemoglobin
Hemoglobin is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein in the red blood cells of all vertebrates, with the exception of the fish family Channichthyidae, as well as the tissues of some invertebrates...
s differed due to a single mutated gene. Much of this work was done with the support of Max Perutz
Max Perutz
Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM, CH, CBE, FRS was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins...
and Francis Crick
Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, and most noted for being one of two co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, together with James D. Watson...
. Ingram won the William Allan Award
William Allan Award
The William Allan Award, given by the American Society of Human Genetics, was established in 1961 in memory of William Allan , one of the first American physicians to conduct extensive research in human genetics...
from the American Society of Human Genetics
American Society of Human Genetics
The American Society of Human Genetics , founded in 1948, is the primary professional membership organization for specialists in human genetics worldwide. As of 2009, the organization had approximately 8,000 members...
in 1967.
This was the first time a researcher demonstrated that a single amino acid exchange in a protein can cause a disease or disorder. As a result, Vernon Ingram is sometimes referred to as "The father of Molecular Medicine."
Ingram joined the MIT faculty in 1958, intending to stay for only one year. He found that he enjoyed it there so much that he stayed on. While at MIT, Ingram collaborated with Paul Marks of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
on hemoglobin research. He was also interested in embryonic hemoglobin and how it differed from that of adults.
By the 1980s, Ingram became interested in neuroscience and especially Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
. His interest was sparked by the work his second wife, Elizabeth (Beth), was doing with mentally retarded people in the Boston area. She had heard that Down's Syndrome was a disease of the neurofilaments; this turned out not to be the cause, but it was noted that people with Down's Syndrome did develop Alzheimer's Disease by the time they were 40.
After retirement, Ingram continued his research, maintaining a small laboratory at MIT. He and his wife, Beth, were housemasters of Ashdown House at MIT for 16 years. Asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
6285 Ingram
6285 Ingram
6285 Ingram is a main-belt asteroid discovered on March 2, 1981 by S. J. Bus at Siding Spring Observatory in the course of the U.K. Schmidt-Caltech Asteroid Survey.- External links :*...
is named in their honor.
He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
in 2002.
Ingram died in Boston, Massachusetts, on August 17, 2006 of injuries stemming from a fall.
See also
- IntrabodyIntrabody (protein)In molecular biology, an intrabody is an antibody that works within the cell to bind to an intracellular protein...
(intracellular antibody) - HuntingtinHuntingtinThe Huntingtin gene, also called HTT or HD gene, is the IT15 gene which codes for a protein called the huntingtin protein...
and Huntington's DiseaseHuntington's diseaseHuntington's disease, chorea, or disorder , is a neurodegenerative genetic disorder that affects muscle coordination and leads to cognitive decline and dementia. It typically becomes noticeable in middle age. HD is the most common genetic cause of abnormal involuntary writhing movements called chorea... - Sickle cell anemia and HemoglobinHemoglobinHemoglobin is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein in the red blood cells of all vertebrates, with the exception of the fish family Channichthyidae, as well as the tissues of some invertebrates...
Selected publications
Inaugural Article: Efficient reversal of Alzheimer's disease fibril formation and elimination of neurotoxicity by a small moleculeBarbara J. Blanchard, Albert Chen, Leslie M. Rozeboom, Kate A. Stafford, Peter Weigele, and Vernon M. Ingram
PNAS 2004 101: 14326-14332
External links
- Vernon Ingram Playlist Appearance on WMBR's Dinnertime Sampler radio show March 12, 2003
- Key Participants: Vernon M. Ingram - It's in the Blood! A Documentary History of Linus Pauling, Hemoglobin, and Sickle Cell Anemia
Obituary of Vernon Ingram from the MIT News Office