William Lawson “Bill” Russell
(August 19, 1910–July 23, 2003)
William Lawson “Bill” Russell was born in Newhaven, on the south
coast of England. His father was the small town’s sole pharmacist during
World War I. The analytical thinking of his father had a strong impact on
the intellectual development of his son. From his years in Newhaven he was
fascinated by the sea and enjoyed sailing very much.
After his early schooling in Newhaven, he earned a scholarship to Oxford
University, where he was on the rowing and judo teams. Upon graduating in
1932, he was awarded a one-year fellowship to Amherst College in Massachusetts.
His work with Drosophila at Amherst encouraged him to apply for doctoral
work under Professor Sewall Wright at the University of Chicago. Before starting
his work on the doctoral thesis he wanted to know his adopted country better
and hitchhiked to the West Coast and back. He earned his doctorate in 1936
with a dissertation on physiological genetics of guinea pigs. Dr. Russell
married fellow University of Chicago doctoral student Elizabeth Schull in
1937. The couple moved to Maine that same year to work at the Jackson Laboratory.
They had four children together before divorcing in 1947.
During the latter part of the 1940s, Bill married Liane (Lee) Brauch, who
would be his lifelong companion and coworker until his death. The newlyweds
moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where Dr. Alexander Hollaender had established
the Biology Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In Oak Ridge,
they started a new research career and founded a family. Lee and Bill had
two children. While beginning to plan his research, Bill asked Dr. Hollaender
for a conventional-size mouse colony in order to continue his research. However,
in the post-World War II era, there was much concern about possible hazards
from the fallout of nuclear weapons tests and from peaceful uses of radiation.
On the recommendations of the Nobel laureate Herman J. Muller and Sewall
Wright a mouse genetics program was initiated in Oak Ridge. Therefore, Dr.
Hollaender asked Bill Russell to investigate the genetic effects of radiation
in mice. Dr. Hollaender and his advisers encouraged Dr. Russell to think
big; the first floor of an old factory was developed into a very efficient
mouse house. In 1951 W.L. Russell published the first results of his experiments: “X-ray-induced
mutations in mice” (Cold Spring
Harbor Symp Quant Biol [1951]: 16:327–336). In 48,007 offspring of
irradiated males, 53–54 mutations were observed. In 37,868 offspring
in the control group, only two mutations could be found. An experiment of
such size was a new dimension in biology. Later the second and the third
floors of the mouse house were developed, establishing a laboratory with
impressive resources that was unique in all the world.
Dr. Alvin Weinberg, the director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, described
these experiments in the following way: “Such research requires the
style of Big Biology, big institutes, big experiments, big money, and, one
hopes, big ideas.” Bill Russell was a brilliant exponent of “Big
Biology.”
To study the induction of germ cell mutations in mice, Dr. Russell developed
a simple, elegant method to detect recessive mutations in the first generation
offspring. This approach is known as the specific-locus assay. A specific-locus
test is conducted by mating treated wild-type mice with animals homozygous
for seven autosomal-recessive visible mutations. The offspring are expected
to be heterozygous at the marker loci. In the event of a mutation at one
of the marker loci in a germ cell of the treated wild-type animal, the offspring
will express the recessive phenotype characteristic for the locus. The specific-locus
method was used by Bill Russell to evaluate the physical and biological factors
that affect mutagenesis: radiation dose and dose rate (“Radiation dose
rate and mutation frequency,” Science [1958]: 128:1546–1550),
dose fractionation (“An augmenting effect of dose fractionation on
radiation-induced mutation rate in mice,” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA [1962]:
48:1724–1727), sex differences (“Radiation-induced mutation rates
in female mice,” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA [1958]: 44:901–905) and
the interval between irradiation and conception in female mice (“Repair
mechanisms in radiation mutation induction in the mouse,” Brookhaven
Symp Biol [1967]: 20:179–189).
Similar success was achieved in investigating the mutagenicity of N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea.
In a key paper (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA [1982]: 79:3589 –3591) Bill
writes: “The extreme mutagenic effectiveness of N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea
in the mouse has permitted the accumulation of the most extensive dose-response
data yet obtained for chemical induction of specific-locus mutations in spermatogonia.
In the lower portion of the curve, below a dose of 100 mg/kg, the data fall
statistically significantly below a maximum likelihood fit to a straight
line.…It is concluded that, despite the mutagenic effectiveness of
ethylnitrosourea, the spermatogonia are apparently capable of repairing at
least a major part of the mutational damage when the repair process is not
swamped by a high dose. This finding is important both in basic studies on
the mutagenic action of chemicals in mammals and in risk estimation.”
Bill was very aware of the importance of the mouse data for estimating the
genetic risk of radiation and chemicals in man (“The role of mammals
in the future of chemical mutagenesis research,” Arch Toxicol [1977]:
38:141–147; and “Comments on mutagenesis risk estimation,” Genetics
[1979]: 92(suppl):S187–S194). However, he never published a paper specifically
addressing the genetic risk of environmental exposure in humans, because
he considered the business of risk estimation too risky.
Dr. Russell was President of the Genetics Society of America, a charter
member of the Environmental Mutagen Society (EMS) and was elected to the
National Academy of Sciences.
On May 5, 1973, Liane B. Russell and William L. Russell were awarded the
Rontgen-Plakette (Roentgen Medal) from the Deutsche Rontgen-Museum at Remscheid-Lennep.
Later he received many additional awards, including the Fermi Award, the
highest honor bestowed by the Department of Energy, and the Health Physics
Society’s lifetime achievement award. The new mouse house at the Oak
Ridge National Laboratory is known as the William L. and Liane B. Russell
Laboratory for Comparative and Functional Genomics.
W.L. Russell participated in the United Nations International Conferences
on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, where he presented papers
on the progress of mammalian radiation genetics. He was a very active member
of the United States delegation to United Nations Scientific Committee on
the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). The different reports, published
by UNSCEAR on the “Genetic effects of radiation,” are an excellent
source of the progress and the importance of the mouse data generated in
Oak Ridge for the estimation of the genetic risk in man. Dr. Russell was
also an active participant at EMS meetings. He invigorated meetings with
stimulating and interesting talks and challenged other speakers on points
of science. These interactions brought about lively discussions and served
as a catalyst to the thinking of EMS members.
The fundamental work on mutagenesis in mammals attracted young scientists
of many countries: Argentina, Belgium, China, Germany, Italy, the Philippines,
Switzerland, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The colleagues of Bill Russell were impressed by his analytical thinking
and his basic conviction founded on the age of enlightenment. His spirit
can best be expressed by the words of Jens Peter Jacobsen: “Light over
the land—that is, what we wanted.”
Bill was not only a great scientist. He loved the world, its mountains,
its animals, its plants, and its wild rivers. At least until his 85th birthday
he swam across the lake at his summer house. This was a very long distance,
and few people had the courage to follow his example. I had the privilege
of working in his mammalian section when I received the Public Health Service
International Fellowship Award in 1959. With the Fellowship I was able to
attend the Radiation Research Conference in San Francisco. I never will forget
the enthusiasm of Bill when he advised my family as to what places we should
visit on our way to San Francisco and on the way back. He tried to persuade
us not only with words, but also with the wonderful pictures that he took
on his many tours to the West. Later, we were again together in Oak Ridge
(1963–1968). At that time, he was not only our great friend, but also
the friend of our children. They were very much impressed by his ability
as a magician. His presence made a difference to all who came in contact
with him. We were all enriched. He will be missed by many.
Udo Ehling,
Berlin
Biography excerpted from Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis 42:231-232,
2003.
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