Seymour Hutner

Seymour Herbert Hutner (1911–2003) was a microbiologist specializing in the nutritional biochemistry of protists (protozoa and algae).

Early life and education

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1911, he obtained a bachelor's degree from the City College of New York (CCNY) in 1931 and a Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1937, where he worked with the Nobel laureate James B. Sumner.

In 1936 he published a paper showing that the photosynthetic flagellate ''Euglena'' had a nutritional requirement for a substance extracted from animal tissue.Hutner, S.H. 1936. The nutritional requirements of two species of Euglena. ''Arch. Protistenkunde'' 88, 93-106. At that time this was considered to be improbable and the paper was rejected by several American journals before eventually being published in Europe. Years later it was discovered that the required factor was vitamin B12, or cyanocobalamin. He developed a nutritional assay method for vitamin B12 using Euglena that was used for many years in hospitals to test for B12 levels in blood, eventually being replaced by other methods.Hutner, S.H. Provasoli, L., Stokstad, E.L., Haffman, C.E., Bell, M., Franklin, A.L., Jukes, T.H. 1949. Assay of anti-pernicious anemia factor with Euglena. ''Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med.'' 70, 118-120.

Career

Haskins Laboratories

After graduating from Cornell, he joined an independent research laboratory, the Haskins Laboratories founded by the physicist Franklin Cooper and the entomologist and geneticist Caryl Haskins. Initially this was based in Massachusetts, near M.I.T., but then it moved to a building on East 43rd Street in New York City, where Hutner was joined by a newly arrived Italian scientist, Luigi Provasoli, who had spent time in the laboratory of Andre Lwoff in Paris. In New York, during the 1940s through the 1960s, Haskins Labs became known for studies of protistan nutrition and the development of culture media and culture assay methods. Hutner was one of the first to appreciate the importance of organic complexing agents in trace metal nutrition of cells. This had significant implications for the development of culture media and also in the understanding of microbial ecology.Hutner, S.H., Provasoli, L. Schatz, A. Haskins C.P. 1950 Some approaches to the study of the role of metals in the metabolism of microorganisms. ''Proc. Am. Phil Soc''. 94, 152-170 With his colleague Luigi Provasoli he showed that photosynthetic organisms could be ‘bleached’ by the antibiotic streptomycin – an early clue of the endosymbiotic hypothesis about the origin of chloroplasts from a prokaryotic ancestor.Provasoli, L., Hutner, S.H., Schatz, A. 1948. Streptomycin-induced chlorophyll-less races of Euglena.'' Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. Med.'' 69, 279-282

At 43rd St., Hutner became known for nurturing young students at a time when this was not a typical pattern, and the lab served as an incubator for many talented high school and undergraduate students. Some went on to become productive scientists, including the two Nobel laureates, Joshua Lederberg and David Baltimore. While full-time at the lab, Hutner also spent several years on the faculties of Columbia University and Fordham University in this period. He also edited, with Lwoff (and later in a second edition with Michael Levandowsky), a multivolume compendium, the ''Biochemistry and Physiology of Protozoa'', that was for many years a standard reference.Lwoff, A. (Ed.) 1951. ''Biochemistry and Physiology of Protozoa'', 1st Ed., Vol. 1. Academic Press, N.Y.Hutner, S.H., Lwoff, A. (Eds.) 1955. ''Biochemistry and Physiology of Protozoa'', 1st Ed., Vol. 2. Academic Press, NYHutner, S.H. (Ed). Biochemistry and Physiology of Protozoa 1st Ed., Vol. 3, Academic Press, N.Y.Levandowsky, M., Hutner, S.H. (Eds.) 1979-1981. ''Biochemistry and Physiology of Protozoa'', 2nd Ed., Vols. 1-4. Academic Press, N.Y.

Relocation to Pace University

In 1970 the lab was required to leave its quarters at 43rd St. Cooper and Provasoli went to Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, but Hutner preferred to remain in New York and moved his part of the lab to Pace University in Lower Manhattan, where he became a professor.

In New York, Hutner's component, focused on microbiological research, became a department of Pace University and is also named Haskins Laboratories, but the two identically named laboratories no longer have formal ties. At Pace the lab became a center for metabolic studies of protistan parasites, as well as studies of behavioral ecology and sensory physiology of free-living protists. Under the leadership of Hutner's student, Cyrus Bacchi, the former led to development of the antiparasitic drug eflornithine (alpha-difluoromethylornithine),Bacchi, C.J., Nathan, H.C., Hutner, S.H., McCann, P.P., Sjoerdsma, A. 1980. Polyamine metabolism: a potential chemotherapeutic target in trypanosomes. ''Science'' 210, 323-334 widely used today against African sleeping sickness (trypanosomiasis). Work on antiparasitic drugs continues today under the direction of Nigel Yarlett.

Legacy and death

Hutner was a founding member of the Society of Protozoologists (now the International Society of Protistologists) serving as its president in 1961-2, and was for many years on the editorial board of the ''Journal of Protozoology'' (now the ''Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology''). A 1977 issue of the journal was dedicated to him.Levandowsky, M. (Ed.) 1977. A collection of papers dedicated to Seymour H. Hutner. J. Protozool. 24 (4) He died in 2003 after a long illness; an obituary was published in the ''Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology''.Lee, John J. and M. Levandowsky 2003. "In Memoriam: Seymour H. Hutner (1911-2003)." ''J. Eukaryotic Microbiology'' 50, 305- 6.

Personal life

In 1956, he married the medical mycologist Margarita Silva.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hutner, Seymour
Haskins Laboratories scientists
1911 births
2003 deaths
Scientists from Brooklyn
American microbiologists
City College of New York alumni
Cornell University alumni
Scientists from New York (state)