Vernon Ingram

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Vernon Martin Ingram

| image = Vernon_Ingram.gif

| caption =

| birth_name = Werner Adolf Martin Immerwahr

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1924|5|19}}

| birth_place = Breslau, Germany
(now Wrocław, Poland)

| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|2006|8|17|1924|5|19}}

| death_place = Boston, Massachusetts

| nationality = German

| field = Biology

| work_institution = MIT

| alma_mater = University of London

| doctoral_advisor = Fred Barrow

| doctoral_students =

| known_for =

| prizes =William Allan Award {{small|(1967)}}

| spouse = Elizabeth Ingram

| children = Peter, Jennifer

| religion =

| footnotes =

}}

Vernon Martin Ingram, {{postnominals|country=GBR|FRS}}{{Cite journal |last1=Crowther |first1=R. A. |last2=Kilmartin |first2=J. V. |date=2022 |title=Vernon Martin Ingram. 19 May 1924—17 August 2006 |journal=Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society |volume=73|pages=315–331 |doi=10.1098/rsbm.2022.0023 |s2cid=251447271 |doi-access=free }} (May 19, 1924 – August 17, 2006) was a German–American professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Biography

Ingram was born Werner Adolf Martin Immerwahr in Breslau, Lower Silesia. When he was 14, he and his family left Nazi Germany because of their opposition to Nazism (being Jewish) and settled in England. He then Anglicised his name to Vernon Ingram.

During the Second World War, Ingram worked at a chemical factory producing drugs for the war effort and at night studied at Birkbeck College at the University of London. He received a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1945 and a PhD in organic chemistry in 1949.

After receiving his doctorate, Ingram worked at postdoctoral appointments at the Rockefeller Institute and Yale University. At Rockefeller, he worked with Moses Kunitz on crystallising proteins. While at Yale, he studied peptide chemistry with Joseph Fruton. In 1952, Ingram returned to England and started working at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, studying protein chemistry.

In 1956, Ingram, John A. Hunt, and Antony O. W. Stretton determined that the change in the haemoglobin molecule in sickle cell disease and trait was the substitution of the glutamic acid in position 6 of the β-chain of the normal protein by valine. Ingram used electrophoresis and chromatography to show that the amino acid sequence of normal human and sickle cell anaemia haemoglobins differed due to a single substituted amino acid residue. Much of this work was done with the support of Max Perutz and Francis Crick. Ingram won the William Allan Award from the American Society of Human Genetics in 1967.

This was the first time a researcher demonstrated that a single amino acid exchange in a protein can cause a disease or disorder. As a result, Vernon Ingram is sometimes referred to as "The father of Molecular Medicine."

{{cite web

|title = 2002 National Academy Fellows

|url = http://genomebiology.com/researchnews/default.asp?arx_id=gb-spotlight-20020502-01

|date = 2 May 2002

|access-date = 25 October 2006

|publisher = Genome Biology

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20050129230803/http://genomebiology.com/researchnews/default.asp?arx_id=gb-spotlight-20020502-01

|archive-date = 29 January 2005

|url-status = dead

|df = dmy-all

}}

Ingram joined the MIT faculty in 1958, intending to stay for only one year. He found that he enjoyed it there so much that he stayed on. While at MIT, Ingram collaborated with Paul Marks of Columbia University on haemoglobin research. He was also interested in embryonic haemoglobin and how it differed from that of adults.

By the 1980s, Ingram became interested in neuroscience and especially Alzheimer's disease. His interest was sparked by the work his second wife, Elizabeth (Beth), was doing with intellectually disabled people in the Boston area. She had heard that Down syndrome was a disease of the neurofilaments; this turned out not to be the cause, but it was noted that people with Down syndrome did develop Alzheimer's Disease by the time they were 40.

After retirement, Ingram continued his research, maintaining a small laboratory at MIT. He and his wife, Beth, were housemasters of Ashdown House at MIT for 16 years. Asteroid 6285 Ingram is named in their honour. Ingram was Director of the Experimental Study Group, an alternative undergraduate education community at MIT, from 1989 to 1999.

{{cite web

|title=Surprise! High-flying Tribute for Ingrams

|url=http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/ingram-0717.html

|date=17 July 2002

|access-date=25 October 2006

|author=Darren J. Clarke

|publisher=MIT News Office}}

He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002.

{{cite web

|title=Three Faculty Named to NAS

|url=http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/nas-0515.html

|date=15 May 2002

|access-date=25 October 2006

|publisher=MIT News Office}}

Ingram died in Boston, Massachusetts, on 17 August 2006 of injuries stemming from a fall.

Selected publications

{{cite journal

|title=A Specific Chemical Difference between Globins of Normal and Sickle-cell Anemia Hemoglobins

|last=Ingram

|first=V.M.

|journal=Nature

|volume=178

|pages=792–794

|year=1956

|doi=10.1038/178792a0

|pmid=13369537

|issue=4537

|bibcode=1956Natur.178..792I|s2cid=4167855

}}

{{cite journal

|title=Gene Mutations in Human Hemoglobin: The Chemical Difference between Normal and Sickle Hemoglobin

|last=Ingram

|first=V.M.

|journal=Nature

|volume=180

|pages=326–328

|year=1957

|doi=10.1038/180326a0

|pmid=13464827

|issue=4581|s2cid=4161107

}}

{{cite journal

|title=Abnormal Human Haemoglobins. II. The Chymotryptic Digestion of the Trypsin-resistant Core of Haemoglobins A and S

|last=Hunt

|first=J.A.

|author2=V.M. Ingram

|journal=Biochimica et Biophysica Acta

|volume=28

|issue=3

|pages=46–549

|year=1958

|doi=10.1016/0006-3002(58)90517-1

|pmid=13560405}}

{{cite journal

|title=Gene Evolution and the Hæmoglobins

|last=Ingram

|first=V.M.

|journal=Nature

|volume=189

|date=4 March 1961

|pages=704–708

|doi=10.1038/189704a0

|pmid=13717731

|issue=4766|bibcode=1961Natur.189..704I

|s2cid=4201541

}}

{{cite journal

|first=R.M.

|last=Winslow

|author2=V.M. Ingram

|title=Peptide Chain Synthesis of Human Hemoglobins A and A₂

|url=http://www.jbc.org/cgi/reprint/241/5/1144.pdf

|journal=J. Biol. Chem.

|volume=241

|issue=5

|pages=1144–9

|date=10 March 1966|doi=10.1016/S0021-9258(18)96814-6

|pmid=5933872|doi-access=free

}}

{{cite journal

|title=Sickle-cell anemia hemoglobin: the molecular biology of the first "molecular disease"--the crucial importance of serendipity

|first=Vernon M.

|last=Ingram

|journal=Genetics

|volume=167

|issue=1

|pages=1–7

|year=2004

|url=http://www.genetics.org/cgi/reprint/167/1/1.pdf

|doi=10.1534/genetics.167.1.1

|pmid=15166132|pmc=1470873}}

{{cite book

|chapter=Novel Compounds eliminate the Neurotoxicity of the Alzheimer Aβ Peptide

|last=Blanchard

|title=Abstr. Massachusetts Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Annual meeting

|year=2004}}

{{cite book

|chapter=Blocking the Initial Molecular Mechanism of Alzheimer's Disease

|last=Ingram

|title=Abstr. International Congress on Alzheimer's Disease, Philadelphia

|year=2004}}

{{cite journal

|title=Sickle-cell anemia hemoglobin: the molecular biology of the first "molecular disease"--the crucial importance of serendipity

|last=Ingram

|first=V.M.

|journal=Genetics

|volume=167

|pages=1–7

|year=2004

|doi=10.1534/genetics.167.1.1

|pmid=15166132

|issue=1

|pmc=1470873}}

{{cite book

|chapter=The Role of Alzheimer Aβ Peptides in Ion Transport across Cell Membranes, in Subcellular Biochemistry: Alzheimer’s Disease

|last=Ingram

|first=V.M.

|title=Cellular and Molecular Aspects of Amyloid

|editor=Harris, R. |editor2=Fahrenholz, F.

|publisher=Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers

|location=London

|year=2004}}

{{cite journal

|title=Development of a Human Variable Light Chain Domain Intracellular Antibody against Huntingtin via Yeast Surface Display

|last=Colby

|journal=J. Mol. Biol.

|date= 17 September 2004

|volume=342

|issue=3

|pages=901–12

|doi=10.1016/j.jmb.2004.07.054

|pmid=15342245}}

{{cite journal

|title=Enhanced anti-Huntington's Disease Intrabodies

|last=Webster

|journal=Abstract Soc. Neurosci.

|date=November 2004}}

{{cite journal

|title=Efficient reversal of Alzheimer's disease fibril formation and elimination of neurotoxicity by a small molecule

|last=Blanchard

|journal=Proc Natl Acad Sci USA

|date=5 October 2004

|volume=101

|issue=40

|pages=14326–32

|doi=10.1073/pnas.0405941101

|pmid=15388848

|pmc=521943|bibcode=2004PNAS..10114326B

|doi-access=free

}}

Inaugural Article: Efficient reversal of Alzheimer's disease fibril formation and elimination of neurotoxicity by a small molecule

Barbara J. Blanchard, Albert Chen, Leslie M. Rozeboom, Kate A. Stafford, Peter Weigele, and Vernon M. Ingram

PNAS 2004 101: 14326-14332

References

External links

[http://web.mit.edu/echemi/www/030312.html Vernon Ingram Playlist] Appearance on WMBR's [http://web.mit.edu/echemi/www/index.html Dinnertime Sampler] radio show 12 March 2003
[http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/blood/people/ingram.html Key Participants: Vernon M. Ingram] – It's in the Blood! A Documentary History of Linus Pauling, Hemoglobin, and Sickle Cell Anemia
{{cite journal

|first=Tinsley H.

|last=Davis

|url=http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/101/40/14323.pdf

|title=Biography of Vernon M. Ingram

|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

|volume=101

|issue=40

|pages=14323–14325

|date=5 October 2004

|doi=10.1073/pnas.0406677101

|pmid=15454612|pmc=521979|doi-access=free

}}