Biographical Memoirs Volume 83 (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Clement Lawrence Markert
Clement Lawrence Markert
Pages 120-139
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From page 121... ...
KIDDER CLEMENT L MARKERT DIED on October I, 1999, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the age of 82.
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From page 122... ...
Responding to the threat of fascist movements taking hoIcl in Europe in 193S, he interruptec! his studies and, along with his college roommate, rocle freight trains to the East Coast, where the two men stowocl away on a merchant ship bouncl for France.
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From page 123... ...
him, Markert enrollecl in the cloctoral program in biology at Johns Hopkins University, where he concluctecl research uncler the mentorship of one of the country's foremost clevelopmental biologists at the time, Benjamin H Willier.
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From page 124... ...
In 1957 he applied for the position in developmental biology at Johns Hopkins that was being vacated by his retiring mentor, Professor Willier. When the search committee recommended Markert's appointment, administrative resistance developed.
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From page 125... ...
Hunter, combined enzyme histochemistry with the starch gel electrophoresis technique newly clevelopecl by Oliver Smithies to show that there are more than 10 separable forms of esterases in mouse liver (Hunter en c! Markert, 1957~.
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From page 126... ...
Markert's insights into the importance of clifferential gene activation cluring clevelopment proviclecl a new way of looking at abnormal clevelopment as well, en cl he was one of the first to point out that diseases such as cancer can be viewocl as cell differentiation gone awry (Markert, 1 968~. As important as it was, Markert en c!
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From page 127... ...
. During the succeeding years Markert en cl his students en cl postclocs continual to stucly the molecular basis and biological significance of isozymes en cl showocl how the stucly of isozymes couIcl contribute to our unclerstancling of the biochemical variation that unclerlies cell differentiation and evolution.
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From page 128... ...
Yoshio Masui, a young scientist from Konan University in Japan, arrived at Yale in 1966 on sabbatical leave to study biochemical aspects of cell differentiation and clevelopment. Masui had become intrigued by Markert's view of development as emanating from clifferential gene activation en c!
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From page 129... ...
provicle a highly advantageous system for studying the control of cell cycle events: It wouIcl allow the investigator to use distinct stimuli to incluce oocyte maturation (response to the hormone) en cl egg activation (cleavage in response to fertilization)
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From page 130... ...
That was the now famous experiment that clemonstratecl the presence of a cytoplasmic factor, which Masui en cl Markert callecl maturation promoting factor (MPF) , that caused oocyte maturation by triggering meiosis (Masui and Markert, 1971~.
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From page 131... ...
for contributions to unclerstancling the cell cycle, the winners were Lelancl Hartwell, Paul Nurse, en cl Tim Hunt, the last of whom hacl cliscoverecl the cyclins in his work with rapidly dividing embryos. Many of Masui's stuclents en cl colleagues, particularly those who hacl shared in the excitement of his discoveries while working alongsicle him in Markert's laboratory, were cleeply clisappointec!
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From page 132... ...
This experiment demonstratecl that fertilization can occur without the normal processes of sperm activation, penetration of the zone pellucida, and sperm-oocyte binding, processes that are sometimes defective in infertile men, it presaged the now widely used technique of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) as a treatment for male infertility.
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From page 133... ...
, Bioscience Information Service (1976-81 ) , La Jolla Cancer Research Fund (1977-86)
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In the late 1960s, for example, research in the Markert laboratory ranger! from LDH isozymes in various species through maturation en cl fertilization of frog and mouse oocytes to ribosomal gene redundancy and the molecular biology of molluscan development.
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From page 135... ...
I am especially indebted to Richard Elinson, Yoshio Masui, David Nanney, Robert Petters, George Seidel, Vijay Thadani, and Gregory Whitt for providing documentation and commentaries pertaining to Markert's life and career. REFERENCES Appella, E., and C
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From page 136... ...
2001. From oocyte maturation to the in vitro cell cycle: the history of discoveries of Maturation-Promoting Factor (MPF)
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From page 137... ...
L Hunter: Histochemical demonstration of enzymes separated by zone electrophoresis in starch gels.
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From page 138... ...
I Ogita: Epigenetic formation of lactate dehydrogenase isozymes in the house mouse, Mus musculus.
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From page 139... ...
Amet and E Goldberg: Human testis-specific lactate dehydrogenase-C promoter drives overexpression of mouse lactate dehydrogenase-1 cDNA in testes of transgenic mice.
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