SALVADOR E. LURIA, NOBEL LAUREATE
WHO FOUNDED MIT CANCER CENTER
Author:
Date: Thursday, February 7, 1991
Page: 55
Section: OBITUARY
Salvador E. Luria, a molecular biologist who shared the 1969 Nobel Prize
in medicine for research into viruses and founded the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology's Cancer Research Center, died of a heart attack yesterday at
his home in Lexington. He was 78.
The exploration of virus reproduction, which was begun in the 1940s by Dr.
Luria, Max Delbruck of the California Institute of Technology and Alfred D.
Hersey of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, paved the way for development
of recombinant DNA technology and genetic engineering.
Drs. Luria and Delbruck also received the Louisa Gross Horowitz Prize in
1969 for their contributions to the genetics of bacteria and bacteriophage.
An outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War and supporter of Sen. Eugene J.
McCarthy's 1968 presidential campaign, Dr. Luria had little patience with
scientists who "exile themselves from the arena of social struggles," as he
put it.
He joined the MIT faculty in 1959 and headed the cancer center from its
opening in 1972 until his retirement in 1985.
In 1974, Dr. Luria won a National Book Award for his first nonacademic
volume, "Life: The Unfinished Experiment."
Born in Turin, Italy, Dr. Luria received an MD degree summa cum laude from
the University of Turin in 1935 and became a radiologist in Rome. In 1938, he
left fascist Italy for the Institut du Radium in Paris. He came to New York in
1940.
After three years at Columbia University, Dr. Luria taught at the
University of Indiana from 1943 to 1959. One of the graduate students in his
classes was James D. Watson, who in 1962 shared the Nobel Prize in medicine
for helping determine the structure of the cellular genetic material DNA.
Dr. Luria was a sculptor and took lessons in Paris in 1963 while on a
fellowship there.
Since 1984, he had been a senior scientist at Repligen Corp. a
biotechnology firm in Cambridge.
He leaves his wife, Zella (Hurwitz), a professor of psychology at Tufts
University; and a son, Daniel, an economist.
A memorial service at MIT is planned.
JTAYLO;02/06 CORCOR;02/07,10:30 LURIA07
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