B.S. and M.S. in Botany (now Plant Biology), Botany professor 1895-1937
Josephine Tilden, the University’s first woman scientist, was world-renowned for her studies of Pacific algae. In 1900, traveling by canoe, she discovered a largely uninhabited stretch of coastline in British Columbia with an abundance of algae and tidal pools. Recognizing the spot’s potential, Tilden contributed her own money to build a biological research station there; the Minnesota Seaside Station was completed that year. The botany department’s experiences at the station exemplified what was adventurous and new in the field of botany at the turn of the century; the research and teaching that went on there became integral parts of the department’s mission in its early years.
Up to 30 professors and students journeyed to the station by train every summer to study geology, algology, zoology, taxonomy, and lichenology; world-renowned scientists participated in the lecture series. Though students worked long hours, they also worked hard at enjoying themselves with hiking trips and evening plays and storytelling--transforming the group of scholars into close-knit colleagues. Letters from student Alice Misz to her mother during the summer of 1906 make it clear that her six-week stay at the station was the most unforgettable experience of her life.
Although the station was shut down in 1907, Tilden’s enthusiasm was not dampened: She went on to lead research expeditions to the South Pacific and continued collecting and writing long after her retirement. The research station’s legacy lives on in the Lake Itasca Forestry and Biological Station, established in 1909, where students still mix intense research and study with camaraderie around the campfire.
Ph.D. in Zoology, 1941
Ray Lindeman (1915-1942) left a tremendous scientific legacy in his short life. He was one of the first scholars to conduct research at the University’s Cedar Creek Natural History area, focusing on the energy and nutrient balance of Cedar Bog Lake. His pioneering work on the linkages among nutrient cycling, productivity, energy flow, and nutritional efficiency laid the foundations for modern ecosystem ecology and freshwater studies.
His paper, "The Trophic-Dynamic Concept in Ecology," has been called "the most significant formulation in the development of modern ecology." That paper, at first rejected by Ecology because the journal’s editors felt it was too theoretical for publication, is now known as "the classical paper of Lindeman." Lindeman’s accomplishments came despite extremely serious illness and frequent hospitalization.
He is memorialized by an award in his name given by the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, and by the Raymond Lindeman Memorial Seminar, established at the University in 1993 by friends, teachers, and admirers to honor this man who transformed the field of ecology.
Perhaps Lindeman’s own words best describe his passion for learning: in a 1936 poem about Lake Itasca, he wrote, "Here we search the placid waters, Find a microcosmic sea Wherein hunting, hunted microbes Eat and live and die, as we ... Dynamic worlds are set before us, Let us humbly seek to learn."
B.S. in Biochemistry, 1943; Ph.D. in Biochemistry, 1947
Many advances in biology and biomedical fields could not have been made without Myron Brakke’s landmark contribution to science: the invention of density gradient centrifugation. This technique dramatically improved the ability to purify proteins, nucleic acids, and viruses and to separate cellular particles such as mitochondria and nuclei--leading to the development of modern virology and molecular biology.
Density gradient centrifugation is now routinely used in every biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, and virology laboratory in the world and has contributed substantially to our current understanding of gene expression and the synthesis and structure of proteins and nucleic acids.
Brakke is also world-renowned for his work on the characterization of plant viruses, including demonstrating that soil-borne wheat mosaic virus is transmitted by a fungus.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Phytopathological Society. He won the USDA Superior Service Award twice, received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of Minnesota, and was inducted into the Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1987.
B.A. in Biostatistics, 1939; Sponsored by the College of Biological Sciences for an Honorary D.Sc., 1993
Well-known developmental biologist Ed Lewis began his decades of genetic research on fruit flies as an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota. He later became especially interested in a bizarre fruit fly mutation where a fly was born with an extra set of wings but no balance organs. He found that genes are arranged on fruit fly DNA in the same order as the body segments whose development they control, and that genes become active in a certain order during an embryo’s development.
His pioneering work on the genetic mechanisms that control early embryonic development in fruit flies led other scientists to look at analogous genes in higher organisms, all the way up to man. His research, along with that of two others, achieved a breakthrough that will help explain congenital defects in humans and that won them the 1995 Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Lewis, who taught biology at California Institute of Technology from 1948 until his retirement in 1988, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Genetics Society of America, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His recognition includes the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal, the Wolf Foundation Prize in Medicine, and an honorary doctor of sciences degree from the University of Minnesota in 1993 for his contributions in the field of developmental biology.
