Philip Handler: An Appreciation
(13 August 1917-29 December 1981)

Philip Handler’s many achievements
in world affairs should not mask the fact
that he was fundamentally a scholar. We
can detect early evidences of this schol-
arship in his weekly visits to the commu-
nity library as a small child. According to
his mother, he would withdraw seven
volumes, the maximum allowable, re-
turning those which he had consumed
during the preceding week. This habit of
reading abundantly and omnivorously*
persisted throughout his life. It certainly
contributed to his early intellectual de-
velopment, leading to a baccalaureate
degree at the College of the City of New
York before his 19th birthday and a
Ph.D. in biochemistry 3 years later from
the University of Illinois under the pre-
ceptorship of Herbert E. Carter.

Handler then joined the recently es-
tablished faculty of Duke University
School of Medicine where he remained

SCIENCE, VOL. 215, 5 FEBRUARY 1982

DeWitt Stetten, Jr.

until he was called to assume the presi-
dency of the National Academy of Sci-
ences in 1969. He climbed the academic
ladder at Duke achieving the Chairman-
ship of the Department of Biochemistry
in 1950 and was named James B. Duke
Professor of Biochemistry in 1961, a title
which he still had at the time of his
death. He was surely one of the leaders
of the Duke faculty which earned for that
school its high position as a source of
well-trained physicians and of gifted in-
vestigators in the biomedical sciences.
He sponsored many graduate students
and authored many important papers,
particularly in relation to the metabolism
of nicotinamide, biological oxidations,
and the biochemical aspects of Darwin-
ian evolution.

During these years Handler served on
many important advisory groups. He

was elected president of his major pro- .

fessional society, the American Society
of Biological Chemists, in 1962. He was
a member of the National Science Board
and served as its chairman from 1966 to
1970. He also participated in many advi-
sory functions at the National Institutes
of Health during the period of the Insti-
tutes’ most rapid growth. He was a firm
advocate of the concept of training
grants and an early proponent of the
notion that in addition to the catégorical
institutes there ought to be at least one
institute dedicated not to a disease area
or an organ system, but rather to the
support of the basic medical sciences.
This notion ultimately led to the estab-
lishment of the National Institute of Gen-
eral Medical Sciences.

In addition to his more than 200 papers
in scientific journals, Philip Handler was
a coauthor with the late Abraham White
and with Emil Smith and myself of Prin-
ciples of Biochemistry, first published in
1954. He persevered as a contributor
through the first six editions and was
anticipating continued participation in
the seventh edition at the time of his
death. His remarkable familiarity with
current developments in the field of bio-
chemistry in the face of many demands
upon his time and effort was certainly in
part due to his continuing association
with this work. His great breadth of
knowledge, his familiarity with the litera-

 

The author is Senior Scientific Advisor at the
oan Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
05.

0036-8075/82/0205-0633$01.00/0 Copyright © 1982 AAAS 633
ture both past and present, and his keen
insight into biological processes made
him a particularly valued coauthor.

Philip Handler was essentially a pri-
vate person and was slow to reveal his
emotions. His immediate family, com-
posed of his wife Lucy and their two
sons, Mark and Eric, was a closely knit
unit. My own children benefited from
their inclusion in the extended Handler
family.

The 12 years during which Handler
served as president of the National
Academy of Sciences were marked by
many important events. Two of these
deserve special mention. Under his lead-
ership the Academy assumed a positive
position in the support of scientists in
other lands whose civil liberties were
being abrogated. It became a function of
the Academy to explore such cases as
were brought to its attention and to rise
to the defense of scientists in other coun-
tries whose rights were being abused. In
this as in most other regards Handler
was a staunch liberal, a political stance

 

Philip Handler

in which he was strongly supported by
his wife.

A second memorable event related to
the creation of a monument honoring the
100th birthday of Albert Einstein. Wash-

 

 

Philip Handler: His Research

Handler’s interests as a research scientist were broad and encompassed
diverse systems, from the whole animal to highly purified enzymes; he had
valid credentials in nutrition and physiology as well as in biochemistry.

His earliest independent studies, mostly in collaboration with W. J. Dann
and W. A. Perlzweig, concerned metabolic transformations of nicotinic
acid, particularly as they applied to the vitamin-deficiency disease pellagra.
His studies of pyridine nucleotide biosynthesis, performed with J. Preiss,
are basic in the field of nucleotide metabolism, and illustrate the roles of
adenosine triphosphate and glutamine in these processes. His studies of
protein and amino acid metabolism, performed first with myself and then
with G. Duda, provided a scale of metabolic activity for the various amino
acids, and showed clearly the central role of glutamine. Amino acid
transport studies in gut and kidney showed the competitive nature of amino
acid transport. Other nutritional-metabolic fields to which Handler contrib-
uted were those of effects of salt and protein on hypertension, the role of
parathyroid hormone in kidney function, and the role of labile methy]
groups in metabolism.

Handler had broad interests in enzymology. His studies of phosphogluco-
mutase, with J. Joshi, were among the earliest to show structural and
functional homologies in the active center of an enzyme in diverse species.
His studies of the metalloflavoproteins xanthine oxidase and aldehyde
oxidase, in collaboration with K. V. Rajagopalan and I. Fridovich, gave
important information on the mode of action of oxidative enzymes with
multiple redox groups. Studies of sulfite oxidase which, like xanthine
oxidase, is a molybdenum-containing enzyme, were precursors to Rajago-
palan’s later studies on the structure of the pteridine-containing molybde-
num cofactor.

The studies of the mechanism of xanthine oxidase and enzymatic and
nonenzymatic sulfite oxidation revealed an important role of oxygen-
containing free radicals; these studies led to Fridovich’s discovery of
superoxide dismutase —HENRY KAMIN, Professor of Biochemistry, Duke
University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina 27710

 

 

634

ington is, of course, a city of monuments
but curiously, despite the great impact
which science has had on our way of life,
only one statue, that of Joseph Henry,
commemorates the accomplishments of
a professional scientist. Therefore, to
honor Albert Einstein, the services of a
sculptor were retained and a monument
was designed to be placed on the lawn in
front of the National Academy of Sci-
ences building on Constitution Avenue.
Despite a wave of criticism in the public
media attacking both the concept and the
design of the monument, Handler perse-
vered and, as he foresaw, it has become
one of the attractions of downtown
Washington. Approximately 3 years ago
the memorial was dedicated, and Han-
dler was able to derive particular satis-
faction from watching the many children
who climb on the statue to be photo-
graphed next to Albert Einstein by their
parents.

At about the time of the meetings of
the National Academy in April 1980,
Handler’s friends became aware that
something was amiss. Soon thereafter he
was diagnosed as having a lymphoma.
He was, however, determined to com-
plete the term of his office, devoting all
possible attention to his job. Although
his health was visibly deteriorating he
did remain in the position of president of
the National Academy of Sciences until
30 June 1981, thus completing his second
6-year term of office. He then withdrew
to Woods Hole, Massachusetts, where
the Handlers owned a home with a par-
ticularly beautiful view of the setting sun
which they all enjoyed. About | month

slater he was hospitalized in Boston and it
was there that he died of pneumonia on
29 December 1981.

During his life, Philip accumulated a
large array of prizes and medals in addi-
tion to 29 honorary degrees. He also
delivered countless lectures at many in-
stitutions. He was a man of few hobbies.
It is true that of recent years he shared a
sailboat with his successor, Frank Press,
but this proved to be more an occasional
relaxation than an engrossing hobby. He
possessed a fine baritone voice and en-
joyed singing with friends around the
piano in his living room. His major avo-
cation was clearly his chosen vocation,
and conversation in his home rarely
drifted far from the field of science. He
had an unusually wide acquaintance
among scientists, and with a select group
of these he was an intimate friend. Those
of us who were fortunate enough to be
members of this inner circle rejoiced in
its warmth and were stimulated by its
conversation.

SCIENCE, VOL. 215