Dilworth Wayne Woolley (July 20, 1914 – July 23, 1966) was a Canadian-born American biochemist, who did important work on vitamin deficiency, and was one of the first to study the role of

serotonin Serotonin (), also known as 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), is a monoamine neurotransmitter with a wide range of functions in both the central nervous system (CNS) and also peripheral tissues. It is involved in mood, cognition, reward, learning, ...

in brain chemistry. He was nominated for a

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

in 1939, 1948, 1949, and 1950.

Early life and education

Wayne Woolley was born in

Raymond Raymond is a male given name of Germanic origin. It was borrowed into English from French (older French spellings were Reimund and Raimund, whereas the modern English and French spellings are identical). It originated as the Germanic ᚱᚨᚷ� ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, the son of Americans living in Canada. His extended family were prominent members of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...

; his great-grandfather was Edwin Dilworth Woolley, was a prominent Latter-day Saint bishop in Salt Lake City. Wayne Woolley (as he was known) was a precocious child who finished high school at age 13, and completed an undergraduate degree in chemistry at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta (also known as U of A or UAlberta, ) is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, t ...

at age 19. He pursued graduate studies in the department of agricultural chemistry at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

, where he earned his PhD in 1939. His graduate research with

Conrad Elvehjem Conrad Arnold Elvehjem (May 27, 1901July 27, 1962) was internationally known as an American biochemist in nutrition. In 1937 he identified two vitamins, nicotinic acid, also known as niacin, and nicotinamide, which were deficient directly in hu ...

concerned

nicotinic acid Nicotinic acid, or niacin, is an organic compound and a vitamer of vitamin B3, an essential human nutrient. It is produced by plants and animals from the amino acid tryptophan. Nicotinic acid is also a prescription medication. Amounts f ...

as a treatment for canine blacktongue, with implications for human

pellagra Pellagra is a disease caused by a lack of the vitamin niacin (vitamin B3). Symptoms include inflamed skin, diarrhea, dementia, and sores in the mouth. Areas of the skin exposed to friction and radiation are typically affected first. Over tim ...

Career

Woolley spent much of his career at the

Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classified ...

in New York City. His major work focused on

in brain chemistry: how substances such as

LSD Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD (from German ; often referred to as acid or lucy), is a semisynthetic, hallucinogenic compound derived from ergot, known for its powerful psychological effects and serotonergic activity. I ...

might affect the action of serotonin, how disorders of serotonin function might be responsible for mental disorders, and how serotonin might play a part in memory and learning. Though his career was shorter-lived than expected, subsequent work by others has developed many of Woolley's hypotheses in productive directions. One of his assistants,

Robert Bruce Merrifield Robert Bruce Merrifield (July 15, 1921 – May 14, 2006) was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1984 for the invention of solid phase peptide synthesis. Early life He was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on 15 July 1921, ...

, won the

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

in 1984, for work on

peptide synthesis In organic chemistry, peptide synthesis is the production of peptides, compounds where multiple amino acids are linked via amide bonds, also known as peptide bonds. Peptides are chemically synthesized by the condensation reaction of the carboxyl ...

they did together in the 1950s. In 1940 Woolley received the

Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award The Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award was a scientific award presented annually by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and sponsored by the Eli Lilly and Company and its subsidiary Elanco (which became an independent company in 201 ...

from the

American Society for Microbiology The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), originally the Society of American Bacteriologists, is a professional organization for scientists who study viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa as well as other aspects of microbiology. It wa ...

. In 1948 he received

Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry The Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry was established in 1934. Consisting of a bronze medal and honorarium, its purpose is to stimulate fundamental research in biological chemistry by scientists not over thirty-eight years of age. The Award i ...

from the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

. In 1952 he was elected to membership in the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. He served as president of the Institute of Nutrition in 1959. Woolley was an author on over 200 research papers and book articles in his thirty-year career. Books by Woolley included ''A Study of

Antimetabolites An antimetabolite is a chemical that inhibits the use of a metabolite, which is another chemical that is part of normal metabolism. Such substances are often similar in structure to the metabolite that they interfere with, such as the antifolat ...

'' (1952), and ''The Biochemical Bases of Psychoses'' (1962).

Personal life

Woolley married bacteriologist Janet Ruth McCarter in 1945. Woolley had

Diabetes mellitus type 1 Type 1 diabetes (T1D), formerly known as juvenile diabetes, is an autoimmune disease that occurs when the body's immune system destroys pancreatic cells (beta cells). In healthy persons, beta cells produce insulin. Insulin is a hormone required ...

from childhood, and in 1923 was among the first children to receive

insulin Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the insulin (''INS)'' gene. It is the main Anabolism, anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabol ...

to treat the condition. He nonetheless experienced blindness as a complication of his diabetes, and was completely blind from age 25 until his death from a heart attack at age 52, while hiking in

Cuzco Cusco or Cuzco (; or , ) is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Sacred Valley of the Andes mountain range and the Huatanay river. It is the capital of the eponymous province and department. The city was the capital of the Inca Empire unti ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. A small collection of the papers of D. Wayne Woolley are at the Rockefeller University Archive Center.A Guide to the D. Wayne Woolley papers
Rockefeller University Faculty FA205.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woolley, Dilworth Wayne 1914 births 1966 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American biochemists People from Raymond, Alberta University of Alberta alumni Canadian emigrants to the United States American scientists with disabilities