Scientists Remember The Outspoken Linus Pauling

Admirers and antagonists alike are remembering Linus Pauling--who died on August 19 at the age of 93--as one of the most flamboyant, outspoken, and influential figures of this century, within science as well as outside it. The two-time Nobel laureate, winner of prizes in chemistry in 1954 and peace in 1962, passed away at his home in Big Sur, Calif. He succumbed to prostate cancer, which he had been battling for about a year. "He was, in my judgment at least, the greatest and most original scientist--especially in chemistry--in the 20th century," says Norman Davidson, a professor, emeritus, of biology and chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, where Pauling had spent the bulk of his career from 1922 to 1963. A longtime friend and colleague of Pauling's, Davidson recalls the days when he was a junior member of Caltech's faculty and teaching assistant to Pauling for a beginner-level chemistry course. "I remember going to him before a lecture, and his announcing that he had just come up with an interpretation for the seemingly anomalous structure of hydrogen fluoride-- `sitting with my feet above my head for convenience'--and showing it to me," he remembers. According to Davidson, this sort of constant mental activity was typical of Pauling. Indeed, Pauling remained scientifically active throughout his life, treading a winding path that took him through many corridors of science from the early days of his experimental work on molecular structure of silicates and other minerals in the 1920s; through his Nobel-winning work in the early 1930s, when he applied the concepts of quantum theory and resonance to describe the nature of chemical bonds; on to the chemistry of a host of biological molecules, notably hemoglobin, antibodies, proteins, and DNA; and finally, his much-publicized and controversial interest in the beneficial effects of vitamin C. The author of many papers in these various fields, Pauling continued to publish scientific papers on his ideas until very recently. His latest publications appeared in widely- circulated, peer-reviewed journals: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (91:897-99, 1994); and Science (91:983, 1994). "He had good instincts about what was fundamentally important in biology," says Norman Horowitz, an emeritus professor of biology at Caltech. "He emphasized that the nature of the hydrogen bond made it important in biological molecules like proteins and DNA." Pauling's contributions to the flourishing field of molecular biology are acknowledged by luminaries in that field. "He brought very deep insights into explaining biological systems in chemical terms," says Francis Crick, currently a distinguished research professor at the Kieckhefer Center of Theoretical Biology at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. Crick, who along with James Watson and Maurice H.F. Wilkins won the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for determining the "double helix" structure of DNA, says that Pauling--who also worked on the problem but provided an incorrect model-- was a very important influence. "He understood the importance of modeling based on crystallographic data--each by itself provided only half the data you wanted for a structure," says Crick. "Linus put incomplete data together to show that sometimes, but not always, you could predict the right structure. He got the a- helix and b-sheet [of proteins] right; he was wrong about g proteins and DNA." In any case, Crick adds: "He showed us how to solve the problem." Horowitz credits Pauling with being the first person to show that the gene actually controlled the structure of the protein, through his work on the chemistry of hemoglobin in sickle cell anemia patients. "Until then, we knew that the disease was inherited, and that a gene had to be present for a protein," he says. "But until Pauling showed the sickle cell hemoglobin was different from the normal, we had no idea that the gene actually controlled the structure of the protein." "Pauling may not have been the first to think about or study a problem," says John D. Roberts, a chemistry professor at Caltech, "but he brought new insights which made all the difference in arriving at the final results." Former associates at Caltech, where Pauling served as division chairman for chemistry, also remember him as a brilliant administrator. "He was important in a political way--in the sense that he was responsible in getting a lot of notable scientists to come to Caltech," Horowitz recalls. Horowitz moved to the Pasadena school from Stanford University when Pauling arranged for his supervisor, George Beadle--a 1958 Nobelist in physiology or medicine--to be appointed to the biology division in 1946. Max Delbrck, who was a winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1969, also came to Caltech because of Pauling, says Horowitz. Pauling himself left Caltech in 1963, owing to tension with the school's officials regarding his enthusiastic involvement in the peace movement. He vocally promoted pacifism in the late 1940s through the 1950s. He signed many peace appeals, including the famous Mainau Declaration in 1955, which called for an end to all war and was endorsed by more than 50 Nobel laureates. Pauling campaigned against the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, to which end he wrote and circulated the Scientists' Bomb-Test Appeal. This document was signed by more than 12,000 scientists worldwide and personally presented by Pauling to the United Nations in 1958; for his efforts he was awarded the peace prize in 1962. However, he received very little support for his activities from Caltech, where administrators demanded that he resign his 22-year chairmanship of the chemistry division in 1958. The reason they cited was that his involvement in these activities took him from his duties in the department. "I think it was disgraceful the way Caltech treated him then," says Crick, adding that he didn't learn about the details of the resignation and Pauling's departure from the school until many years later, at one of Pauling's birthday celebrations. After leaving Caltech in 1963, Pauling spent a few years each at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, Calif.; the University of California, San Diego; and Stanford University before establishing in 1973 the Linus Pauling Institute (LPI) of Science and Medicine, a publicly funded, nonprofit research organization in Palo Alto, Calif. Pauling set up the institute chiefly to further research on vitamin C, a topic that had begun to excite his interest during his tenure at Stanford. He became convinced of the beneficial effects of very high doses of this dietary supplement and, at different times in the course of the next 15 to 20 years, promoted it as a cure for colds, cancer, and heart disease. The institute, like its outspoken founder, has found itself embroiled in some controversial incidents over the years: In 1978, its cofounder and president Arthur Robinson was fired over controversies regarding data on the instituteUs anti- cancer research, which led to prolonged lawsuits until 1983. In 1993, Mathias Rath, who came to LPI as the first director of cardiovascular research in 1990, filed a lawsuit against the institute to clarify the intellectual property of his discoveries on the connections between vitamin C and heart disease. The case is still in litigation. Although Pauling continued in his conviction in the value of vitamin C, and had been taking it in large doses since the 1970s, the scientific community remains equivocal on the subject of its effectiveness, with some researchers rejecting Pauling's claims outright. "Linus deserved his Nobel Prize in chemistry, he deserved his peace prize, but was completely deluded as to the uses of vitamin C," says Victor Herbert, a professor of medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and director of the hematology and nutrition research lab at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "We have shown that vitamin C supplements are lethal to people with iron overload disease, and can actually cause certain cancers," he adds. Herbert's findings are summarized in a recent editorial titled "The antioxidant supplement myth" (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 60:157-8, 1994). "Linus and I were actually good friends until the late 1960s," Herbert says. "We worked together during the peace movement. We got along because we were both very outspoken. But then he got delusional about vitamin C." Crick attests to Pauling's outspokenness, as well, pointing out the scientist's willingness to speculate on a myriad of different scientific problems: "Sometimes he was wrong, sometimes he was right. But he was never afraid to stick his neck out."

Scientists Remember The Outspoken Linus Pauling

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