Biographical Memoirs Volume 91 (2009) / Chapter Skim
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DAVID DEXTER PERKINS
DAVID DEXTER PERKINS
Pages 220-241
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Photograph by Jonathan Wittenberg.
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In addition, his laboratory contributed, over a period of 55 years, many new techniques, compendia of all known mutant strains, updated genetic maps, and exchange of information among a global community of Neurospora researchers. As Charles Yanofsky said in a recent memorial tribute,1 "Beadle and Tatum initiated research using this organism, but it was David who made certain that this interest would continue." The new field of fungal genetics and biology originated with the Neurospora community, and David can claim perhaps the greatest role in its origin.
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His pacifism made him unwilling initially to join the war effort, but he decided soon that he must do so. David left Columbia to serve in military intelligence in England, studying aerial photos and briefing Air Force crews regarding bombing targets.
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Robert Lloyd, an underprivileged high-school graduate recruited as an assistant to work in the laboratory, speaks of David's and Dot's generosity: I was working and going to Foothill Community College at night, but David suggested I quit work and go to school full time and explained that the economics made more sense that way. I didn't see how that was possible.
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While I knew David most of my professional life, I got better insight into David's and Dot's lives on my sabbatical in 1985 with Charles Yanofsky, whose laboratory lay across the hall from David's. I lived for the first half of my stay in a spare room in the Perkins's plain house while he traveled in Africa to collect Neurospora samples from the wild.
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Molecular biologists learned the arcana of Neurospora genetics and microbiological techniques from David, and the Perkins laboratory collaborated on molecular biological research for the first time. This union of laboratories assured the renaissance of Neurospora research that culminated in the organism being the first filamentous fungus to have its entire genome sequenced.
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of a simple organism was an extremely attractive opportunity for geneticists at the time. David Perkins was by then at Stanford, where Beadle and Tatum had done their first Neurospora work (Beadle had left Stanford for Caltech in 1946)
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Strains carrying aberrations yielded characteristic patterns of ascospore abortion in crosses. These patterns were easily visible under a dissection microscope, and David constructed new and valuable strains for future experimental use (Kasbekar, 2007)
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Neurospora thereby became recognized as a model organism through the use of mutational analysis of attributes well beyond biochemical pathways, ranging from sexual biology, cell-to-cell recognition, mitochondrial biogenesis, circadian rhythms, population genetics, gene regulation, and development (Davis, 2000)
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David, while maintaining his formal genetic and cytogenetic studies, began a largescale, global collection of wild-type strains of Neurospora spp. in collaboration with his long-time research associate, Barbara Turner (1976)
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. These population studies set the stage for many genetic and evolutionary investigations, first of the productiveness of interspecies matings; then of the comparative molecular attributes of mating-type genes; then the role of incompatibility genes that limit asexual fusions of mycelia; and finally of the relatedness and probable diversification of the different species from a common ancestor.
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With this collection David and long-term research associate Namboori Raju were afforded an opportunity to analyze the genetics of the steps of the mating process, from the origin of the female fruiting structure to the formation and shape of ascospores. The sexual process is now one of the best-known series of events subjected to cytological studies in any fungus (Raju, 1992)
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The use of common molecular techniques by all workers on fungi transcended the diverse biology of this group of organisms, from industrial forms to plant pathogens. Because of a shared molecular language and many techniques, the Neurospora-Aspergillus community invited workers on all filamentous fungi to join it after 1985.
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He was the first to explore so deeply and so broadly the genetic system of a haploid, eukaryotic organism. Not only did he establish the formal genetics of Neurospora but the cytogenetics, the sexual biology, and almost incredibly, the population genetics of the fungus as well.
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Many foreign Neurospora researchers would automatically visit his laboratory when they were in the United States, and many began their most important work on Neurospora after spending longer periods with him. His loyalty to them and to others was surpassed only by his memory of the details of their work.
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His compendia of mutations and their multiple alleles at all known chromosomal locations made all workers aware of what had gone before, sparing the field countless hours of work and much unnecessary duplication of findings in the literature. Professional Honors and Service David received a National Institutes of Health Research Career Award (1964-1989)
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i wish to thank the following persons for help with critiques, corrections, and additions to this and an earlier account (Davis, 2007) , the latter including the contributions of Dorothy Newmeyer Perkins: Namboori Raju, Charles Yanofsky, David Jacobson, Barbara Turner, Susan Perkins, and the late Robert Metzenberg.
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2007. Tending Neurospora: David Perkins, 1919-2007; Dorothy Newmeyer Perkins, 1922-2007.
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1975. Population genetics of allozyme variation in Neurospora intermedia.
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3:315-327. Preservation of Neurospora stock cultures with anhydrous silica gel.
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Yanofsky. Determination of the inactivating alterations of two mutant alleles of the Neurospora crassa cross-pathway control gene cpc-1.
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The genome sequence of the fila mentous fungus Neurospora crassa. Nature 422:859-868.
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