Harold M. Weintraub
| Harold M. Weintraub | |
|---|---|
| Born | Harold M. Weintraub June 2, 1945 Newark, New Jersey, United States of America |
| Died | March 28, 1995 Seattle, Washington, U.S. |
| Residence | U.S. |
| Nationality | U.S. |
| Fields |
Molecular biology Developmental Biology |
| Institutions |
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Princeton University Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center University of Washington |
| Alma mater |
Harvard College (BS) University of Pennsylvania (MD and PhD) |
| Doctoral advisor | Howard Holtzer, Ph.D. |
| Known for |
MyoD Control of Cellular differentiation Transcription (genetics) Chromatin structure and function |
| Notable awards |
Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry (1982) Outstanding Investigator Grant, National Institutes of Health (1986) Richard Lounsbery Award (1991) Robert J. and Claire Pasarow Foundation Medical Research Award (1991) |
Harold M. "Hal" Weintraub was an American scientist who lived from 1945 until his death in 1995 from an aggressive brain tumor. Only 49 years old, Weintraub left behind a legacy of research.
Born on June 2, 1945 in Newark, New Jersey, Weintraub's childhood revolved around sports, including basketball, an activity he would continue to particularly relish throughout his adult life. Weintraub was also the pitcher for an all-city high school baseball team, and a football fullback.
Weintraub attended Harvard College, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1967. He then proceeded to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his M.D. and Ph.D. in 1972. Weintraub performed his Ph.D. dissertation research in the laboratory of Howard Holtzer, studying red blood cell development and production (erythropoeisis) in chicken embryos. This work included the study of cell cycle kinetics, hemoglobin synthesis, and the control of cell division. The effects of bromodeoxyuridine on cell differentiation (conversion of a primitive cell into a more specialized cell) were also analyzed. While still only a graduate student, Weintraub's early work contributed significantly to the fields of developmental and cellular biology, yielding numerous peer-reviewed publications and setting the stage for the next chapter in his research explorations.
During his abbreviated career, Weintraub was the author of more than 130 scientific articles, most of which were in top-tier, peer-reviewed journals, including the "Big 3" basic science journals: Cell, Science, and Nature. Weintraub was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and served as editorial advisor for numerous journals.
Weintraub spent approximately a year at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, doing a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratories of Sydney Brenner and Francis Crick. There, his studies of the nucleosome — a basic unit of DNA packaging — showed that its structure was altered when genes were actively transcribed. Weintraub returned to the United States, and between the years 1973-1977 was an Assistant Professor at Princeton University. His research at Princeton, which would continue during his years in Seattle, applied enzymatic and traditional biochemical isolation/separation techniques to clarify the relationship between the physical structure of genes and their expression (the process by which DNA is transcribed into messenger RNA, and eventually into Protein.) Another avenue of research in Weintraub's lab studied the effects of oncoviruses on cellular gene expression.
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