OBITUARIES

Harry Beevers

Harry Beevers

Plant physiology has lost a guiding light. Harry Beevers, an outstanding plant physiologist, a beloved classroom teacher, a mentor of students and postdocs, and an excellent leader in administration, passed away at the age of 80 on April 14, 2004, at his home in Carmel, California, after a brief illness.

Harry was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was president of the American Society of Plant Physiologists and a recipient of the Stephen Hales Prize and the Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership Award from the Society. He was awarded honorary degrees from Purdue University, the University of Nagoya, and the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Born in County Durham, England, in 1924, Harry’s early secondary education was directed toward a career as an arts and crafts teacher. However, shortage of supplies during World War II eliminated that curriculum, and thus somewhat fortuitously, Harry embarked late in his secondary education on his scientific training. He earned his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in botany from King’s College at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, then part of the University of Durham. As part of his Ph.D. research under the mentorship of Meirion Thomas, Harry demonstrated carbon dioxide fixation in the dark in leaves of the succulent Bryophyllum. This contribution paved the way for future researchers to identify Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) as an alternative pathway for carbon assimilation.

Following completion of his Ph.D., Harry joined the Medicinal Plant Research group at Oxford under the directorship of W. O. James, an authority on plant respiration. During his four years at Oxford, Harry studied phenol oxidases and other enzymes of alkaloid metabolism. He also collaborated with Eric Simon in demonstrating that the influence of various herbicides was determined by pH, which, in turn, influenced the dissociation of the weak acid herbicides. Capitalizing on the ready availability of Arum spadices in the woodlands around Oxford, Harry was able to investigate cyanide-resistant respiration, which has led to contemporary investigations into alternative electron transport pathways and thermogenesis in plants.

In 1950, Harry moved to Purdue University, where he started his own laboratory and during his 19-year stay established West Lafayette, Indiana, as a center of excellence for studies of respiratory metabolism in plants. Early inhibitor studies delineated the operation of the glycolytic pathway and TCA cycle in plants. The availability of ultra centrifuges, chromatography, and 14C-labeled compounds led to the extension of these studies and the isolation of mitochondria. Summers spent at Brookhaven National Laboratory with Martin Gibbs introduced Harry to the use of isotopes in his studies of respiratory metabolism and enabled him to demonstrate the operation of the pentose phosphate pathway in plants. These studies were paralleled by identification and characterization of the appropriate enzymes by a cadre of graduate students and postdocs.

Harry was intrigued by the metabolism of germinating oil seeds in which acetate, derived from storage lipids, serves as a source of carbohydrates rather than entering the TCA cycle. During a sabbatical with Sir Hans Krebs in Oxford in 1956–1957, Harry and Hans Kornberg demonstrated the operation of the glyoxylate cycle in extracts from the castor bean endosperm. Succinate produced from acetate in the cycle served as the precursor for glucose by a reversal of glycolysis; this represents the theme of gluconeogenesis. The outcomes of these early investigations into respiratory metabolism and gluconeogenesis were published in 1961 in Harry’s book Respiratory Metabolism in Plants (Harper & Row, publ.)

In studies of the utilization of acetate, investigators in Harry’s lab between 1960 and 1966 demonstrated the presence of separate pools of metabolites later shown to be associated with different subcellular organelles. As exciting as identifying the gluconeogenic pathway was, the investigations were eclipsed in 1966 by the discovery that the enzymes of the glyoxylate cycle were confined to a newly identified organelle, the glyoxysome. This discovery was followed by the demonstration that other similar organelles, peroxisomes, and gerontisomes belonged to a family of microbodies. In 1969, Harry moved his research group to the University of California, Santa Cruz, then a new campus in the University of California system. Harry’s lab rapidly expanded the study of the biogenesis of the components of the glyoxysomes. The castor bean endosperm served as an excellent source of intercellular membranes. Investigations extended the study of anabolic activity of the endoplasmic reticulum. Protein bodies, vacuoles, functional ribosomes, lipid bodies, and a multitude of enzymes were characterized. These findings have led to a comprehensive picture of the major metabolic reactions of castor bean endosperm, their location in the cell, and the sites of synthesis of the organelles.

The outstanding research on the glyoxysome represents an unusual accomplishment in biological sciences, in that the studies of the organelle in plants preceded investigations of similar metabolic compartments in mammals, protozoa, and yeast.

Details of Harry’s research can be found in his prefatory chapter in the Annual Review of Plant Physiology and Plant Molecular Biology (44:1–12, 1993) and Tom ap Rees’s article “Harry Beevers,” in Molecular Approaches to Compartmentation and Meta-bolic Regulation, A.H.C. Huang and L. Taiz, editors, pp. 22–29, 1991 (ASPP, publ.).

Harry established such an excellent reputation in research and mentoring apprentices that he attracted budding scientists to join his lab from the four corners of the world. To have the privilege of joining him as a student or postdoc was to serve a scientific apprenticeship as rewarding as anyone might wish. Harry was a brilliant and innovative experimental scientist with a gift for leading by example and instilling confidence where it was needed. But more than this, he showed apprentices that science could be fun. His warmth, unfailing patience, and good humor permeated all of his interactions with his students and postdocs. There was no scientific mountain too large to be climbed, no possibility of failure too overwhelming to be contemplated. During the second half of his career he put in even more effort, at great personal sacrifice, to help apprentices establish their own careers. Soon after apprentices had left Harry’s lab they would send him manuscripts from their research that he would carefully edit, and it was not unusual for him to cross out his name as co-author.

A serious teacher, Harry was always in command of his subject, the class, and the blackboard. His classes were intense, but the students were never bored. Passing information from teacher to student was not a product of passive osmosis but rather the result of Harry’s dynamic, challenging, and engaging style of teaching, and not a day went by that students did not laugh out loud during class. Every student who took one of his courses remembers when Harry would decide that breaking into a song, with the appropriate scientific content, was the only way to get his point across. His courses naturally received rave reviews from students. His outstanding teaching earned him a place in the “Book of Great Teachers,” a permanent wall display in the Purdue University Memorial Union.

Harry was famous for being an outstanding speaker. Few who attended one of his talks would have forgotten it, ever. He was humorous and highly gifted in attracting the attention of the audience, be they scientists or nonscientists. Singing songs with scientific content and even dancing were not uncommon entertainment tools. Over the years, Harry accumulated a broad repertoire of these songs, many with lyrics he had composed. His rendition of theses songs and quick wit made him the life and soul of many parties and in high demand as an after-dinner speaker. His Stephen Hales speech at the ASPP annual meeting held at Asilomar, California, during which he was able to conjure up a severe summertime storm with constant thunder and lightning intermingled with seconds of total darkness, is surely remembered by everyone there and serves as the model of excellence for award acceptance speeches.

During his early days at Purdue, Harry was involved in the formation of the Midwestern Section of ASPP. In 1961–1962, he was ASPP president. One of the most significant decisions he made as president was to appoint Martin Gibbs as editor-in-chief of the journal Plant Physiology. Martin held the post for 29 years and made the journal the premier publication in the field of plant physiology. At the national level, Harry served as a member of review and advisory panels to the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He was recognized by his peers for his dedication and service to both Purdue University and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Harry met his wife, Jean, while they were both students at Wolsingham Grammar School, Wolsingham, County Durham. Like Harry, Jean obtained a B.Sc. degree from King’s College, University of Durham at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The two were married in 1949 and emigrated to the United States in 1950. Their son Michael was born in West Lafayette, Indiana, in 1951. Throughout the years, Jean has been a constant source of help and support to Harry. She has provided warm welcome and hospitality and has established lasting friendships with many of the researchers associated with Harry’s laboratory. She also wholeheartedly met the compelling demands of Harry’s diabetes and the consequences of the side effects that come from prolonged treatments. She was always there for her husband in this and every other regard.

Harry is survived by Jean, of Carmel, California; his son Michael, his daughter-in-law Susan, and granddaughter Angela, of Fresno, California; sisters Win Allinson, Ripon; Edna Emerson, Wearhead; Elsie Chapman, Portsmouth; and Vera West, Canterbury, England; and brothers Alec Beevers, Stourbridge, England, and Leonard Beevers, Norman, Oklahoma (a prominent plant physiologist in his own right and a former president of ASPP).

A memorial service will be held September 25, 2004, at the Arboretum at the University of California, Santa Cruz (write to Daniel Harder, Arboretum director, dkharder@cruzmail.ucsc.edu for information).

This tribute to Harry Beevers was contributed by many of Harry’s former students, postdocs, and colleagues.