Biographical Memoirs Volume 88 (2006) / Chapter Skim
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Charles Stacy French
Charles Stacy French
Pages 62-89
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Photo
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The Botanical Society of America Merit Award, in 1973, described C Stacy French as a "skillful and persistent investigator of the spectral properties and state of chlorophyll in tissues; inventor and gadgeteer par excellence; able and genial administrator of a productive center of botanical research -- Carnegie Institution of Washington at Stanford." Stacy was a key figure in the revolution that deciphered the photochemical events of photosynthesis, beginning with his elegant work in 1952, where he demonstrated, with Violet M
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He received many honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, both in 1963; membership in the Academie der Naturforscher Leopoldina in 1965; the Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership in the American Society of Plant Physiologists (now American Society of Plant Biologists) in 1971; the 1973 Merit Award of the Botanical Society of America; and honorary doctorate from Göteborg University in 1974.
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,1 from whom he first learned about photosynthesis, and he wrote, "I have stayed with the subject ever since." His undergraduate thesis dealt with the temperature coefficient of catalase action under the guidance of W
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Not being able to stay at Harvard, Stacy accepted a position at the California Institute of Technology with Robert Emerson to study photosynthesis of purple bacteria. In preparation for this area Stacy spent the summer of 1934 taking Cornelis B
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; his measurements on the quantum yield and action spectrum of bacterial photosynthesis were published soon thereafter (1937)
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, he measured absorption spectra of photosynthetic bacteria. It was at this time that the seeds of the French press may have developed in his mind.
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In Minnesota, Stacy met, among others, Allan Brown (who has done some of the pioneering mass spectroscopic measurements, separating respiration from photosynthesis) and Albert Frenkel (who later discovered photophosphorylation in photosynthetic bacterial membranes)
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as director of the Department of Plant Biology; however, Stacy was equally supportive of the experimental taxonomy group with Bill Hiesey, David Keck, Jens Clausen, and Malcolm Nobs. Innovative biochemical
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At Harvard he had broken photosynthetic cells by using supersonic vibrations. Vannevar Bush had made some suggestions about breaking cells through a fixed hole.
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Stacy also constructed the first automatic recording fluorescence spectrophotometer that simultaneously measured and corrected fluorescence emission spectra. This was done with two homemade grating monochromators and a rotating plastic drum on which was inked a correction curve followed by a photocell.
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This giant machine produced a curve that was the sum of the curves on the five tables. Stacy would often change the parameters on each of the movable tables, using trial and error to estimate the various spectral forms of chlorophyll necessary to produce a resulting combined curve that would match the measured overall absorption spectrum.
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The advantages of this polarographic technique-very small samples and the fast speed of measurement-became obvious to Stacy. Together with Per Halldal, Stacy obtained an action spectrum for oxygen evolution, using the Haxo-Blinks method.
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and the red bands of Chl a in the action spectrum of the Emerson enhancement when the second light beam was absorbed by the red pigment phycoerythrin in the red alga Porphyra. Govindjee and Rabinowitch (1960)
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Some of these boxes may still be hidden in the basement of the current laboratory. Hemming Virgin told us a story that he once observed what he thought was an exciting new fluorescence band, but soon thereafter discovered this new emission band was seen only when Stacy was standing near the equipment, smoking his cigar.
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Ephraim French, as well as four grandchildren. Stacy and Margaret were wonderful and hospitable people; they hosted many great parties at their homes in Palo Alto and later in Los Altos Hills.
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One session came at a time when Vannevar Bush, Head of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, housed in Washington (DC) headquarters, was goosing the laboratory to follow up on the idea that algae seemed to be more efficient than higher plants.
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The Plant Biology Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, at Stanford, California, had an excellent reputation in the field and was a mecca for all "photosynthesizers." Many essential discoveries of that period originated from there and many original set-ups, that could not be found elsewhere, were built by Stacy, for example, the first derivative spectrophotometer. The French laboratory was a place of open and friendly exchanges, with morning coffee breaks that gave the opportunity to discuss the latest research advances or projects presented by a colleague.
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He also recognized the novelty of the absorbance difference spectrophotometry approach in the measurement of the photosystems, as he once quipped, "No one really ever measured the stoichiometry of the photosystems." Stacy French exemplified the ultimate research scholar, and I could see how, under his leadership, many of the great colleagues of his generation walked, worked, and contributed to the advancement of the field of photosynthesis research at the Carnegie Institution. Arthur Grossman, one of the current staff members of the Department of Plant Biology of the Carnegie Institution, Stanford, California, wrote (personal communication, email message on May 2, 2005, to G.)
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We are grateful to Jeanette Brown, Pat Craig, Yaroslav de Kouchkovsky, Art Grossman, Tasso Melis, Kärin Nickelsen, Jack Myers, and Tony Ziselberger for reading and making suggestions on this manuscript.
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and G.) and several others shown in a partial list below, we remember you Stacy, for your scientific accomplishments, for your friendship, your free spirit, and for all the fond personal remembrances you have given us.
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600. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Wash ington.
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1983. Aspirations, reality, and circumstances: The devious trail of a roaming plant physiologist.
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Science 84:575-575. 1937 The quantum yield of hydrogen and carbon dioxide assimilation in purple bacteria.
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The fluorescence spectra of red algae and the transfer of energy from phycoerythrin to phycocyanin and chlo rophyll.
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Oxygen uptake and evolution following mono chromatic flashes in Ulva and an action spectrum for System 1. Plant Physiol.
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The action spectrum for blue-light-stimulated oxygen uptake in Chlorella.
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