The highest honor given by the Society for In Vitro Biology
is the Lifetime Achievement Award. It is presented to scientists
who are considered pioneers or highly influential researchers
to the science and art of cell culture. They are men and women
who have devoted their careers to exemplary research and/or
teaching. The recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award are
selected by vote of the Board of Directors from a list of nominations
received and recommendation by the Awards Chair. Eugene Elmore
was the chairperson for 2004.
The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to three scientists
at the 2004 SIVB World Congress in San Francisco, California.
The Awardees were Dr. Thomas Grace,Prof. Sangyin Gao, Dr. Walter
Nelson-Rees, and Dr. Trevor Thorpe. Over the next issues of
In Vitro Report, each of the winners will be highlighted with
an article written by those who prepared the nomination.
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Dr. Grace accepts the Lifetime
Achievement Award.
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At the 2004 World Congress on In Vitro Biology in San Francisco,
two pioneers of invertebrate cell culture, Dr. Tom Grace and Professor
Shangyin Gao, received Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest
award given by the Society for In Vitro Biology (SIVB.)
Dr. Grace and Professor Gao were two legendary figures in the
insect cell culture community. They were the first who established
continuous cell lines from insects. The exceptional achievements
they made about four decades ago have resulted in the rapid development
and important applications of insect cell culture. The breakthrough
made by Dr. Grace and Professor Gao has affected virtually all
subsequent research dealing with insect cell culture, such as
the emergence of the baculovirus-insect cell culture system which
resulted from intensive and elegant studies on the molecular biology
of baculoviruses and the development of a novel insect-virus-cell
culture system. The use of in vitro expression systems has not
only become an important tool for basic research, but represented
a widely use technology for commercialized products in agriculture
and human health around the world.
The first successful insect cell lines were achieved independently
within a 3 year time span by both Professor Gao in Wuhan, China,
in 1958, and by Dr. Grace in Canberra, Australia, in 1961. The
two had never met and were unaware of each other's work. However,
they shared outstanding talent.
Dr. Thomas Grace receives his lifetime
achievement award from Invertebrate President Amy A. Wang,
Vice President Guy Smagghe, and SIVB President Sandra L.
Schneider. |
Professor Shangyin Gao received a BS degree in science in 1930
from Donhwu University, China, and a BS degree in literature in
1931 from Rollins college in Florida, the U.S. Then he studied
life science and received a PhD degree in 1935 from Yale University
in the U.S. In the same year he returned to China and started
teaching at Wuhan University utill his death in 1989. From 1945
to 1947 as a visiting scholar Professor Gao studied with the famous
virologist, Nobel prize winner Dr. Wendew Stanley, and started
his new career in virology. In 1947 he returned to China and established
China's first virology research lab in Wuhan University. After
about ten years of hard work, Professor Gao successfully established
continuous silk moth cell lines. He was not able to announce his
breakthrough to those outside of China, because China sadly closed
the door to the rest of the world during that period of time.
Luckily, the only abstract submitted by Professor Gao to an international
conference drew attention of the cell culturists immediately.
Dr. Karl Maramorosch and his colleagues at SIVB (back then the
TAC) overcame the political barriers and discovered the details
about Professor Gao's insect cell lines. That was an important
moment to the invertebrate field, since vertebrate cell lines
had been established about 10 years previously, and now invertebrate
cell lines had finally caught up. In 1978, as soon as China re-opened
the door to the world Professor Gao was invited to the 6th International
Invertebrate Virology Conference in Czechoslovakia. Although for
more than 30 years Professor Gao had not visited any countries,
he had followed the advances of insect virology. The world finally
heard his full story about the insect cell lines he established
and also the development of insect virology in China. At this
late time of his life Professor Gao had received many awards and
honors from China and the world. He served as liaison to connect
the researchers in China to the other part of the world. He had
also hosted scholars to his lab from other counties. Dr. Karl
Maramorosch visited his lab in 1989, shortly before Professor
Gao was passed away. Today, many SIVB members still remember Professor
Gao as they have met him in SIVB and other meetings. Professor
Gao's contribution to SIVB and to cell culture will be with us
forever.
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The backbone of
the Invertebrates From left to right: Spiros Agathos, Robert
Granados, Tom Grace, Dwight Lynn, Just Vlak, Karl Maramorosch.
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In 1961 Dr. Tom Grace from Australia announced he successfully
established cell lines from the emperor gum moth (Antherea
eucalypti). Although Dr. Grace's invention was independent
from Professor Gao's, they spent the same amount of time, about
ten years, to get the rewarding results from their extremely hard
work, and they confirmed each other's invention with their insect
cell lines.
Dr. Grace's interest in insect began when he was nine years old
when he first collected the beautiful yellow and black spotted
jewel beetle (buprestid) in his schoolyard. His love with insects
was never stopped. In 1946 Dr. Grace studied science in Sydney
University, then, became an assistant of Dr. Max Day in the Division
of Entomology Scientific and Industrial Research Organization,
now CSIRO. Since 1953 Dr. Grace commenced a project to grow insect
cells in culture. His great interest was not only study the viruses,
which caused diseases in insects, but also those viruses, which
attacked animals and plants, and were transmitted by insects.
He used the ovarian tissue of the emperor gum moth (Antherea
eucalypti) and silkworm (Bombyx mori.) Both these insects
contained haemolymph which, at this stage was a necessary ingredient
of the medium and the cells were susceptible to polyhedral virus
diseases. He also grew cells of mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti)
because of their medical importance. From 1957 to 1958 Dr.
Grace studied at the Rockefeller University in New York in the
laboratory of Dr. Karl Maramorosch. There, he gradually refined
a medium he had developed using insect hemolymph as the base.
This was the first medium generated for insect cells and later
became known as the very popular Grace's Medium. With this medium,
he was able to keep insect cells alive for 3 months.
On returning to Canberra in 1959, Dr. Grace was accepted as a
PhD candidate in the Department of Microbiology at the Australian
National University. It was in 1961 when he was working on his
PhD program that Dr. Grace successfully established his first
four insect cell lines from ovarian tissue of the emperor gum
moth. In 1964, Dr. Grace received his PhD degree and by then he
has generated more cell lines, including the first mosquito cell
line. His cell culture technique was filmed in 1963 and broadcast
internationally. Dr. Grace made priceless contributions to in
vitro biology with the development of his famous "Grace's
Tissue Culture Medium." Many fields in cell biology have
benefited from Grace's Medium. Between 1960 and 1990 Dr. Grace
won many awards, and he was recognized by many countries in addition
to Australia, such as the U.S., Japan, Israel, UK, India and Czechoslovakia.
In order to recognize their specific tangible achievements Dr.
Karl Maramorosch and Dr, Robert Granados convened a symposium:
"Molecular Engineering and Biology of Invertebrate Cell Cultures:
A tribute to Dr. Tom Grace and Professor Shangyin Gao" at
the 11th International Conference on Invertebrate Cell and Tissue
Culture, held in conjunction with the 2004 World Congress on In
Vitro Biology. It was a significant honor to SIVB that Dr. Grace
attended this symposium. He presented his historical 1963 film:
"Insect Tissue Culture." When Dr. Sandra Schneider,
the president of SIVB presented the Lifetime Achievement Award
Dr. Grace made his acceptance speech. SInce Professor Gao passed
away 15 years ago, the award to Professor Gao was "In memorium"
and presented to his family and Wuhan Institute of Virology, the
institute he had founded.
Both Dr. Grace and Professor Gao were role models to the scientists
and researchers in invertebrate research. To recognize them with
the highest-level award has shown our respect and our decision
to follow in Dr. Grace and Professor Gao's footsteps.
