Carl Woese

Carl Woese
Born	July 15, 1928 (1928-07-15) Syracuse, New York
Nationality	United States
Fields	Microbiology
Institutions	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Alma mater	Amherst College Yale University
Known for	Archaea
Notable awards	Leeuwenhoek Medal (1992) Selman A. Waksman Award (1995) National Medal of Science (2000) Crafoord Prize (2003)

Carl Richard Woese ( /ˈwoʊz/; born 15 July 1928 in Syracuse, New York) is an American microbiologist and physicist. Woese is famous for defining the Archaea (a new domain or kingdom of life) in 1977 by phylogenetic taxonomy of 16S ribosomal RNA, a technique pioneered by Woese and which is now standard practice. He was also the originator of the RNA world hypothesis in 1977, although not by that name. He currently holds the Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair and is professor of microbiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Life and education

Woese attended Deerfield Academy. He received a bachelors in math and physics from Amherst College in 1950 and a doctorate in biophysics from Yale University in 1953. Woese joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1964.

Work and discoveries

Having defined Archaea as a new domain, Woese redrew the taxonomic tree. His three-domain system, based upon genetic relationships rather than obvious morphological similarities, divided life into 23 main divisions, all incorporated within three domains: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eucarya. Archaea are neither Bacteria nor Eukaryotes. Looked at another way, they are Prokaryotes that are not Bacteria.

The tree of life elucidated by Woese is noteworthy for its demonstration of the overwhelming diversity of microbial lineages; single-celled organisms represent the vast majority of the biosphere's genetic, metabolic, and ecosystem niche diversity. This is surprising to some, given our familiarity with the macrobiological world. As microbes are responsible for many biogeochemical cycles and are crucial to the continued function of the biosphere, Woese's efforts to clarify the evolution and diversity of microbes provided an invaluable service to ecologists and conservationists.

Phylogenetic tree based on Woese et al. rRNA analysis

The acceptance of the validity of Woese's classification was a slow and painful process. Famous figures, including Salvador Luria and Ernst Mayr, objected to his division of the prokaryotes. Not all criticism of him was restricted to the scientific level. Not without reason has Woese been dubbed "Microbiology's Scarred Revolutionary" by the journal Science. The growing amount of supporting data led the scientific community in general to accept the Archaea by the mid-1980s. Few scientists still adhere to the idea of a unified Prokarya; Woese appears to have been vindicated in his convictions^{[citation needed]} .

Woese also conjectured an era in which there was a considerable amount of lateral transfer of genes between organisms. Species formed when organisms stopped treating genes from other organisms with equal importance to their own genes. Lateral transfer during this period was responsible for the fast early evolution of complex biological structures.

Woese's work is also significant in terms of its implications for the search for life on other planets. Prior to Woese, Archaea were thought to be extreme organisms that had evolved from the organisms that are more familiar to us. Many scientists now believe they are ancient, and may have robust evolutionary connections to the first organisms to live on Earth. Organisms similar to those Archaea that exist in extreme environments may have found a foothold on other planets, some of which are known to harbor conditions conducive to extremophile life.

Honors and reputation

Woese was a MacArthur Fellow in 1984, was made a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1988, received the Leeuwenhoek Medal (microbiology's highest honor) in 1992, the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology in 1995 from the National Academy of Sciences, and was a National Medal of Science recipient in 2000. In 2003, he received the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 2006, he was made a foreign member of the Royal Society.

Many microbial species such as Pyrococcus woesei, Methanobrevibacterium woesei and Conexibacter woesei are named in his honor.

In connection with Woese's work on horizontal gene transfer as a primary evolutionary process, Professor Norman Pace of the University of Colorado in Boulder is quoted as saying "I think Woese has done more for biology writ large than any biologist in history, including Darwin ... There's a lot more to learn, and he's been interpreting the emerging story brilliantly."

Publications

• 1967 The Genetic Code: The Molecular Basis for Genetic Expression.

See also

• Karl Stetter
• George E. Fox
• Bacterial phyla, the major lineages of Bacteria
• Thomas Gold

External links

• Woese's homepage