Gabriella woese microbiology
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University of Illinois microbiology and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Carl R. Woese was hailed by colleagues as one of the great evolutionary biologists of the 20th century, a scientist who took a primarily subjective field and turned it on its ear.
Mr. Woese and colleagues published two papers in 1977 that went against a universal assumption that there were two components to the evolutionary tree of life — bacteria and everything else.
The scientists reported that the microbes now known as archaea were as distinct from bacteria as plants and animals. The discovery not only added archaea as a third main branch of the evolutionary family tree, it had wide-ranging and practical implications for microbiology, ecology and even medicine, colleagues said.
“His work on the dynamics of evolution may help us combat the emergence of ‘superbugs’ with antibiotic resistance, as well as addressing fundamental questions about the origin of life,” said U. of I. physics professor Nigel Goldenfeld, a longtime colleague.
Mr. Woese, 84, who received the Crafoord Prize in biosciences in 2003, died of complications from pancreatic cancer Sunday, Dec. 30, in his Urbana home.
The Crafoord, administered by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, is widely co
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CHAMPAIGN, lll. – University of Illinois microbiology and Institute for Genomic Biology professor Carl R. Woese, who adopted a molecular approach to classifying organisms and upended taxonomy with the discovery of a “third domain” of life, died Sunday (Dec. 30) at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 84.
Woese and his colleagues wrote two papers published in 1977 that overturned a universally held assumption about the basic structure of the tree of life. They reported that the microbes now known as archaea (are-KEY-uh) were as distinct from bacteria as plants and animals are. Prior to this finding, scientists had lumped archaea together with bacteria, and asserted that the tree of life had two main branches – the bacteria (which they called prokarya), and everything else (the eukarya).
The new discovery added archaea as a third main branch of the evolutionary family tree.
The discovery stemmed from Woese’s painstaking analysis of the ribosome, a protein-building machine abundant in all living cells. Rather than classifying organisms by observing their physical traits, as others had done, Woese looked for evolutionary relationships by comparing genetic sequences. He focused on a subunit of the ribosome, and found that the ribosomal sequences of some
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Carl Woese dies at 84; evolutionary biologist
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