Purnell Whittington Choppin

Abstract

Virologist, physician–scientist, and administrator. Born in Baton Rouge, LA, USA, on July 4, 1929, he died of prostate cancer in Washington, DC, USA, on July 3, 2021, aged 91 years. The talents that make a good physician–scientist do not necessarily make a good administrator. But Purnell Choppin possessed a skill set that served him equally well in both roles, first as a virology researcher and clinician with one of the USA's foremost universities and latterly as the leader of one of the country's most successful research funders. His career at the Rockefeller University, New York, NY, lasted almost three decades and generated findings that were to prove valuable in developing antiviral therapies. Choppin's subsequent period of more than a decade running the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Chevy Chase, MD, encompassed an investment in people and technologies that harvested a clutch of Nobel Prizes. Choppin studied at the School of Medicine of Louisiana State University in New Orleans, LA, graduated in 1953, and went on to a residency at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, MO. In 1957, he moved to the Rockefeller University to become a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Virology under its celebrated director, Igor Tamm. By the time he wound up his research career in 1985, Choppin had become Leon Hess Professor of Virology and himself taken on the directorship of the Laboratory of Virology. Choppin's research career can be seen as having moved through three phases, according to Peter Palese, Horace W Goldsmith Professor of Medicine and Chair of the Department of Microbiology of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, NY. Choppin joined Rockefeller at the time when New York was enduring the 1957 influenza pandemic. “His initial foray into virology was in isolating viruses, in particular the H2N2 influenza virus”, says Palese. “This was classical virology in which you first isolate the virus and then describe it.” With his collaborators, Choppin moved to a second phase in which he introduced the then modern techniques of biochemistry into virology. “For instance, they used polyacrylamide gels to look for proteins, and then analysed them”, says Palese. The third phase was to study viral genomic structures, work done in collaboration with Robert Lamb, now an HHMI investigator at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. Choppin finished his scientific career by studying how persistent viral infections lead to chronic neurological conditions. “He started off in the early days with the only tools of cell culture that were then available”, says Stephen Goff, Higgins Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University in New York, NY. “But was able to do amazing science with them.” When Choppin left the Rockefeller University in 1985, it was to become the Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of HHMI. In 1987 Choppin was appointed its President, and remained in the post until 1999. Around the time he joined HHMI, a decision had been made to sell its main asset, the Hughes Aircraft Company, and create a more flexible endowment for supporting research. The sale triggered a vast increase in available funds. As Goff points out, Choppin, supported by his Vice President Maxwell Cowan, “had to make important decisions about how that money was going to be spent…[HHMI] doesn’t just give out grants in the traditional way. They set out to fund people, not projects. They were selecting people they felt were worthy of support without restraint over what they worked on.” The approach paid off, says Thomas Cech, co-winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO, and Choppin's successor at HHMI. “About 25 of the investigators that Purnell brought into the Howard Hughes ended up winning a Nobel Prize after 10 or 20 years. The most recent was Jennifer Doudna [co-winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of genome editing], who was brought in under Purnell's Presidency in the late 1990s.” The success of HHMI under Choppin's leadership was impressive. Cech has no doubt why Choppin did so well at HHMI. “His steadiness, his consistency, his commitment to running a well organised operation…He was passionate about science. He enjoyed being part of an organisation that supported so much invention.” As Goff puts it, “He not only loved science…he had good taste in science.” Choppin is survived by his wife, Joan, and their daughter, Kathleen.