Organized Photobiology in the United States: The Prehistory*

Abstract

In general, photobiology has been strangely neglected by investigators, planners and granting agencies. However, there were individuals and organizations that kept the subject of photobiology going in the absence of groups identified as photobiologists. We will emphasize only a few that can be tied to the history of the American Society for Photobiology (ASP), including mentors of some of the founding members of ASP. Notable organizations in the United States included the U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory at Beltsville, MD, the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University located at Pacific Grove, CA, the Carnegie Institute Laboratory at Stanford, CA, the Illuminating Engineering Research Institute in New York City coordinating research among utilities and lamp manufacturers, the Photobiology Institute at Brandeis University with Albert Kelner and The Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC. The University of Minnesota had several investigators working on porphyrins and light sensitivity. Harold Blum was a multidisciplinary group by himself, his activities including writing a book on evolution and advising the French government on Paleolithic cave art! The Mayo clinic was a leader in UV therapy, including Goeckerman’s combined use of tar and UV light, a process believed by its users to work by some means other than photosensitization. Europe has long had a greater emphasis on physical and “spa” forms of treatment, and the dermatologists who came to the United States as refugees from Hitler brought the knowledge of UV therapy with them. Among these dermatologists were Stephen Rothman at Chicago, Rudolph Baer at New York University and Stephen Epstein at the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin. When Marshfield’s Epstein first talked about photoallergy he was received with some puzzlement. Rothman (1) is given credit for making American dermatology scientific and influenced many. C. B. van Niel was an inorganic chemist who became a microbiologist and worked at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University at Pacific Grove, CA. He gave a summer