George Wald
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George Wald | |
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Born | George Wald November 18, 1906 |
Died | April 12, 1997 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. | (aged 90)
Alma mater | New York University Columbia University |
Known for | Pigments in the retina
Wald's visual cycle |
Spouses |
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Children | 4 |
Awards | Neurobiology |
Institutions | Harvard University University of Chicago |
George Wald (November 18, 1906 – April 12, 1997) was an American scientist and activist who studied pigments in the retina. He won a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit.[1]
In 1970, Wald predicted that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”[2][3][4]
Research
As a postdoctoral researcher, Wald discovered that vitamin A was a component of the retina. His further experiments showed that when the pigment rhodopsin was exposed to light, it yielded the protein opsin and a compound containing vitamin A. This suggested that vitamin A was essential in retinal function.
In the 1950s, Wald and his colleagues used chemical methods to extract pigments from the retina. Then, using a
Biography
George Wald was born in
Wald was elected to the
Wald spoke out on many political and social issues and his fame as a Nobel laureate brought national and international attention to his views. He was a
With a small number of other Nobel laureates, he was invited in 1986 to fly to Moscow to advise Mikhail Gorbachev on a number of environmental questions. While there, he questioned Gorbachev about the arrest, detention and exile of Yelena Bonner and her husband, fellow Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov (Peace prize, 1975). Wald reported that Gorbachev said he knew nothing about it. Bonner and Sakharov were released shortly thereafter, in December 1986.
A member of the Circumcision resource center in Boston, he was one of the first scientists committed against circumcision but his article "Circumcision", rejected by the New York Times in 1975, was published in 2012 only by an English magazine (http://churchandstate.org.uk/2012/12/what-jewish-nobelist-george-wald-had-to-say-about-circumcision/ Archived September 21, 2020, at the Wayback Machine).
Wald died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was married twice: in 1931 to Frances Kingsley (1906–1980) and in 1958 to the biochemist Ruth Hubbard. He had two sons with Kingsley—Michael and David; he and Hubbard had a son—the award-winning musicologist and musician Elijah Wald—and a daughter, Deborah, a prominent family law attorney. He was an atheist.[9][unreliable source?]
See also
References
- ^ The Nobel Foundation. "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1967". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Retrieved December 12, 2015.
- ISBN 978-0817918750. Retrieved November 15, 2021.
- ^ Mark J. Perry (April 21, 2015) 18 spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year. aei.org
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2022.
- ^ "George Wald". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved December 16, 2022.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved December 16, 2022.
- ^ "List of Recipients". University of Zurich. Archived from the original on July 21, 2015. Retrieved December 5, 2015.
- ^ Norman Solomon (September 6, 2010) A Speech for Endless War. zcommunications.org
- ISBN 9780982355466.
Biologist George Wald dismissed anything besides physicalism with, "I will not believe that philosophically because I do not want to believe in God. Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible: spontaneous generation arising to evolution.
Further reading
- Goldstein, B. 2001. Sensation and Perception, 6th ed. London: Wadsworth.
- Dowling, John E (December 2002). "George Wald, 18 November 1906 – 12 April 1997". PMID 12619664.
- Hubbard, R; Wald E (2007). "George Wald Memorial Talk". Novartis Foundation Symposium 224 - Rhodopsins and Phototransduction. Novartis Foundation Symposia. Vol. 224. England. pp. 5–18, discussion 18–20. )
- Raju, T N (August 1999). "The Nobel Chronicles. 1967: George Wald (1906–97); Ragnar A Granit (1900–91); and Haldan Keffer Hartline (1903–83)". S2CID 53297408.
- Jukes, T H (July 1997). "George Wald believed in apocalypse now". S2CID 205027479.
- Dowling, J E (May 1997). "George Wald (1906–97)". S2CID 4322440.
- "Nutrition classics. The Journal of General Physiology, Volume eighteenth 1935: Vitamin A in eye tissues. By George Wald". S2CID 1091402.
- Dowling, J E; Wald G (March 1981). "Nutrition classics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume 46, 1960: The biological function of vitamin A acid: John E. Dowling and George Wald". PMID 7027100.
- Sulek, K (July 1969). "Nobel prize for George Wald, Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragner Granit in 1967 for discoveries concerning the primary biochemical and physiological phenomena occurring in the process of vision". PMID 4897321.
- Bouman, M A (January 1968). "Ragnar Garnit, Haldan Keffer Hartline, George Wald, winners of the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine". PMID 4875782.
- Mikulski, T; Zaki El-Sabban, M.; Zwolinski, Bruno J. (1968). "Noble laureate prize in the field of medicine for 1967: G. Wald, R. Granit, and H. K. Hartline". PMID 4879756.
- Dowling, J E; Ratliff F (October 1967). "Nobel prize: 3 named for medicine, physiology award (George Wald, Ragnar Granit and Haldan Keffer Hartline)". S2CID 177926314.
- "George Wald". PMID 13268547.
External links
- George Wald on Nobelprize.org
- John E. Dowling, "George Wald, 1906–1997: A Biographical Memoir" in Biographical Memoirs, Washington, D.C.: The National Academy Press (National Academy of Sciences), Volume 78, 298:317.
- A remembrance by his son Elijah
- Papers of George Wald : an inventory
Two of George Wald's speeches can be read on-line: