Turtles All the Way: Reflections on myo-Inositol

Abstract

It has been said that retirement consists of going from “Who's who?” to “Who's he?” My invitation to contribute to the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) Reflections is an honor and timely as well in that as an emeritus professor, I have the time and an opportunity to beat the clock to “Who was he?” In a Venn diagram of biological sciences in which circles representing biochemistry and neuroscience overlap, the lens-shaped area can be defined as neurochemistry or, more recently, as molecular neuroscience and best describes my research area. My career in neuroscience is summarized in an autobiographical series recently published under the auspices of the Society for Neuroscience (1). In it, I detail my research on neuroplasticity, the ability of the nervous system to undergo change as a result of external inputs. This includes interventive studies on the role of protein synthesis in memory formation and correlative studies on optic nerve regeneration, both in teleost fish (1). This JBC Reflections article encapsulates my biochemical career, with emphasis on the neurochemical significance of myo-inositol, one of nine positional isomers of hexahydroxycyclohexane, and its phosphates. My early years are described in Ref. 1. Briefly, I was born in Detroit in 1926, graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1944, entered a Navy premedical officer training program at the University of Michigan, and received an M.D. from Wayne State Medical School. I cannot resist sharing a recollection. In 1946, as a 20-year-old freshman medical student, I found myself surrounded by returning World War II veterans who were not only older than I, but understandably a bit rustier in college chemistry. In our freshman biochemistry class, I volunteered to go to the blackboard to derive and discuss the Henderson-Hasselbach equation. I returned to my seat, satisfied that I had done a clear and concise job. The 30- or so year-old returning veteran sitting next to me whispered, “Are you going to end up as a biochemistry professor?” Fishing for a compliment, I said, “No, why?” He answered, “The way you got right up there and mumbled into the blackboard, you just can't fake that!” He became a psychiatrist, and I, a biochemist. I interned in Sayre, PA, and had a postdoctoral fellowship with F. O. Schmitt in the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, until I was recalled by the Navy for a 2-year stint at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, after which I moved to the nearby National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1952.