Torsten Wiesel
President, The Rockefeller University
Purnell W. Choppin
President, The Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Walter Doerfler
Foreign DNA Integrated into Mammalian Genomes: Mechanism and Consequences
Professor, Institute of Genetics, University of Cologne
Kathryn V. Holmes
The Role of Coronavirus Receptors in Species Specificity and Tissue Tropism
Professor of Microbiology, University of Colorado School of Medicine
Robert A. Lamb
Paramyxovirus Mediated Cell Fusion: Continuing a Rockefeller University Tradition
Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology, Northwestern University;
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Hans J. Eggers
Professor, Institute of Virology, University of Cologne
Edwin D. Kilbourne
Programmed Antigenic Stimulation--A New Approach to Vaccination
Research Professor, New York Medical College
Pravinkumar Sehgal
Interleukin-6-type Cytokines: View From the Tamm--Choppin Lab
Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy and Medicine, New York Medical College
James S. Murphy
Professor Emeritus, The Rockefeller University
James Krueger
Cellular Studies in the Pathogenesis of Psoriasis
Assistant Professor, The Rockefeller University
Lennart Philipson
From Oncogenes to Growth Suppression
Director, Skirball Institute for Biomolecular Medicine, New York University
Purnell W. Choppin
President, The Howard Hughes Medical Institute
A native of Tapa, Estonia, Igor Tamm emigrated to the U.S. in 1945 after
studying at the Tartu University Medical Faculty and at the Karolinska
Institute. Yale University awarded him an M.D. cum laude in 1947. In 1949,
he joined Rockefeller as an assistant and as assistant physician of the
Rockefeller Hospital. He was named Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor in 1986,
and became emeritus in 1992. Tamm was a pioneer in the study of the biochemistry and replication of
viruses. Working first with influenza viruses, he isolated and described
what is now called the Tamm-Horsfall glycoprotein, the first pure substrate
discovered for the influenza virus enzyme. Tamm also obtained the first
evidence that RNA plays a role in the replication of DNA-containing
viruses. In the 1960s, he discovered the existence of double-stranded RNA
as genetic material in the ubiquitous reoviruses of humans and animals and
in the wound tumor virus of plants. He also studied mechanisms that
regulate the production of interferons, small proteins naturally produced
by virus-infected cells to fight virus replication. In 1967 Tamm was the first American to receive the Alfred Benzon Prize,
awarded by the Alfred Benzon Foundation of Copenhagen. In 1975 he received
the Sarah L. Poiley Memorial Award of the New York Academy of Sciences. The
National Academy of Sciences elected him a member in 1975. He died at age
72, at his home in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, in February 1995.