Waiter, Albert

Childhood and adolescence

Albert Kellner was born in Philadelphia . In childhood, he suffered from bone tuberculosis , which led to claudication, as well as to frequent hospitalizations that interfered with education. However, the Waiter filled gaps in knowledge of self-study. This allowed him to get a scholarship to study at the University of Pennsylvania , which was very useful, since the family Kehner was poor ^[1] .

Albert Kellner married Adelin Usvald (she made him an offer a month after they met ^[1] ); they lived together all their lives, had children - son Robert, daughters Margaret and Carol ^[4] .

Kellner graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received a master's degree from North Carolina State University in 1942, and the following year - a PhD in bacteriology from the University of Pennsylvania, where he continued to work. He was engaged in the production of natural rubber , then worked in the field that was actively developing at that time - the development of antibiotics , advised the Hayden Chemical Corporation in this regard ^[4] .

Opening photoreactivation

In 1946, Kölner was invited by Milislav Demerets to work at Cold Spring Harbor . There, he and Vernon Bryson investigated the possibility of producing antibiotics using bacteria that were mutated by irradiation ^{[1] [5]} .

By irradiating Escherichia coli and Streptomyces griseus streptomycetes with mutagenic ultraviolet radiation , Kellner found that cultures of organisms after irradiation can grow better or worse (the difference was several orders of magnitude) without apparent regularity. X-rays allowed mutations to be obtained with greater reliability, but Kellner decided to continue research with ultraviolet light. He believed that the difference in viability of the irradiated bacterial cultures can be explained by exposure to different temperatures . However, in September 1948, after long experiments and data analysis, he found out that the determining factor was the effect on sunlight of irradiated cultures. So photoreactivation was discovered - the first DNA repair mechanism found; Despite the fact that at that time the role of DNA as a carrier of genetic information has not yet been established, Kellner correctly concluded that light contributes to the restoration of certain molecules in the hereditary apparatus of microbial cells damaged by mutagenic radiation. He published his results in 1949 ^{[1] [6] [7]} .

Photoreactivation was simultaneously opened by Renato Dulbecco , and a dispute about priority, which was prevented by the efforts of Salvador Luria , almost arose: after learning of Kellner’s still unpublished work, Luria initiated an addition to the mention of Kölner that was ready for publication, while assuring the last one that Dulbecco's discovery was truly independent ^[8] .

While working at Cold Spring Harbor, Kellner received two antibiotics, which he called actinorubin and lavendulin . However, on the whole, to the satisfaction of Demeretz, studying the effect of ultraviolet radiation on bacteria, Kellner devoted relatively little time to getting antibiotics. This led him to leave Cold Spring Harbor in the spring of 1949 ^[1] .

Further biography

The discovery of photoreactivation brought Kelner some fame (and the gold medal of the Finsen name in 1964 ^[9] ), and his main follow-up works were also connected with its study. In the 1950s, Kellner investigated the effect of light on tumors caused by ultraviolet radiation, since it was hoped to apply photoreactivation to cancer treatment ^[10] . However, in reality, as is now known, there is no photoreactivation mechanism in human cells ^[11] .

From Cold Spring Harbor, he went to work in the biological laboratories at Harvard University . From September 1951, he worked at Brandeis University ^[12] , he taught various fields of biology in it for the next thirty years, he joined the faculty of the Faculty of Biology organized in 1956 ^[13] . In 1960 he was president of the Northeast Division of the American Society for Microbiology (then the Society of American Bacteriologists) ^[14] . He retired in 1981. He died in 1994 from complications after heart surgery, buried in the Beth-Izreel cemetery in Waltham ^{[4] [15]} .