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Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3104
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INTRODUCTION |
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 TOP INTRODUCTION Molecular evolutionControversies with...DDT: pros and consOther issuesREFERENCES |
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He started life in England, but at the age of 17 left his family behind
and emigrated to Canada, hoping "to make my way, on my own, in the
New World" (Jukes 1990
). After a year of laboring on a
farm in Ontario, he crossed the border to Detroit and worked 12-h night
shifts at a Chevrolet plant, machining transmission shafts. This
better-paid work allowed him to save the $300 needed to begin a
freshman year at the Ontario Agriculture College at Guelph in 1926, and
he did the same work in the two following summer vacations.
For the summer of 1929, he was delighted to be offered a small salary
"with permission to sleep, rent-free on an iron cot in the
poultry building" (Jukes 1977
). The funds came from a
grant for the Poultry Department of the College to study the effect of
a hen’s diet on the hatchability of her eggs. This work made Jukes
realize that he needed to learn more biochemistry and he spent the
years 1930–33 as a graduate student, obtaining his Ph.D. in the
Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto Medical School.
Tom then received a three-year National Research Council
postdoctoral fellowship and moved to the Department of Biochemistry at
the University of California, Berkeley. With the coming of the Great
Depression, the fellowship was cancelled after one year for lack of
funds and he felt lucky to be hired to teach in the University Poultry
Husbandry Division at Davis. There were no funds for research but he
obtained a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to work on the
development of a purified diet for chickens.
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).
In 1939, Jukes found the "chick factor" to be pantothenic acid,
previously known only as a growth factor for yeast cells (Jukes 1939
). Sidney Babcock, a chemist, then worked with him to
develop a method for the synthesis of pantothenic acid, which was used
by manufacturers. In that same year, he also found that choline was the
organic factor that turkeys needed to prevent the development of leg
weakness. In two memoirs, he has described the excitement of the race
to sort out the members of the vitamin B complex with both
collaboration and intense competition among different research groups
(Jukes 1977 and 1990
).
In 1942, Jukes moved to Lederle Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company for which he had previously acted as a consultant, and after three years diversion to war work, he became Director of their group devoted to nutrition and physiology. By that time, Robert Stokstad and others in the group had isolated and identified folic acid, another vitamin that was especially important for the formation of normal blood cells.
It was also realized then that the sulfonamide drugs acted against
bacteria because they were similar to p-amino benzoic acid,
a vitamin for many bacteria, but antagonistic to it. Research began at
Lederle to find a molecule that would be similarly antagonistic to
folic acid, and perhaps suppress leukemia in which white blood cells
were being produced in great excess. The most successful of the
molecules synthesized by chemists at Lederle was methotrexate, which
proved useful in the treatment of leukemia and other cancers and is
still used extensively (Jukes 1987
).
The most commercially important result from the work of Jukes’s group at Lederle was the chance discovery that the addition of low levels of antibiotics to the diets of young chicks and piglets would increase their growth rate even when there was no evidence of their being sick. This was discovered when the residues from large-scale fermentation for the production of chlortetracycline were tested for their possible vitamin B-12 activity. Such additions were to become almost routine in intensive farming in both the United States and other countries. This will be referred to again later.
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Molecular evolution |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONMolecular evolutionControversies with...DDT: pros and consOther issuesREFERENCES |
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) and then a series of papers
discussing the evidence for the early development of the genetic code
in primitive life forms. |
Controversies with environmentalists |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONMolecular evolutionControversies with...DDT: pros and consOther issuesREFERENCES |
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). Two of his photographs of
the mountains are included in his article, and he illustrated the
family Christmas card for many years with further photographs of the
mountains. By 1939, he was a life-member of the Sierra Club. Two big influences on Tom were therefore his love of nature in the wild and his love of science, which he saw as a powerful force for good, with no essential conflict between the two. But after World War II, with the explosion of the first atomic bombs, and even more after the Vietnam conflict with the use of defoliants, the image of science changed for many people. The scientist began to be portrayed as irresponsible, intent on the widespread use of new chemicals regardless of the risks involved, and as somehow responsible for the incidental pollution of the environment. For activists, developments such as nuclear power stations, the use of pesticides and irradiation of foods all came into this category. Jukes reacted strongly to this kind of characterization and for the last 30 years of his life wrote passionately in the defense of science and its applications
The attacks closest to what had been his own work concerned the routine
supplementation of animal feeds with low levels of antibiotics. This
practice was opposed on the ground that it could encourage the
development of mutant strains of bacteria that were resistant to the
action of the antibiotics, and that this might in turn impair their
efficacy in the treatment of human infections. The essence of Jukes’s
response was that even after 25 years of experience and a number of
independent investigations, there was no evidence that this had
happened (Jukes 1973
).
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DDT: pros and cons |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONMolecular evolutionControversies with...DDT: pros and consOther issuesREFERENCES |
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). He argued that it was
irresponsible of the Society to ignore the extraordinary and
well-demonstrated value of DDT in saving millions of Third World
lives from malaria, when even the claims for reduction in bird numbers
in the U.S. were in doubt. An example of the evidence was that the
numbers of robins, claimed to be at particular risk from eating worms
contaminated with DDT, were actually increasing. The Society’s editor
wrote that the critics were liars paid by the chemical industry; the
New York Times then quoted from these remarks and added the names of
five such people that they had obtained from the society. These
included Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Prize winner (who chose not to
respond), and Tom Jukes, who sued both the newspaper and the Society
for libel. He received moral satisfaction, i.e., the judges concluded
that there was no basis for what was a serious libel, but not a
monetary one because the final court decided, on a technicality, that
the wrong persons had been named in the suit. |
Other issues |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONMolecular evolutionControversies with...DDT: pros and consOther issuesREFERENCES |
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). The
ability of analysts to measure "parts per billion" meant that
legislators were "chasing a receding zero" (Jukes 1983
). A further object of Jukes’s attack was the touting of
"Laetrile" (the name given to a cyanogenetic glycoside found in
apricot pits) as a "natural" cure for cancer, and the attempt to
avoid Federal regulation by calling it vitamin B-17 (Jukes 1976
). He acted as an expert witness in a trial of the promoter
who received a prison sentence. Another target of Juke’s attacks were the publishers of school biology texts that omitted any reference to evolution so as not to annoy "creationists" who believed that life on Earth was literally created in seven days. In the decade from his 75th to 85th year, he published over 100 essays, many of them on this subject as well as on technical aspects of molecular evolution.
For all his public reputation as a relentless critic, he was a social man. He served for a term on the Council of the American Institute of Nutrition (now the American Society for Nutritional Sciences) and as chair of its History Committee. He also served for many years as Biographical Editor of the Journal of Nutrition and Assistant Editor of the Journal of Molecular Evolution. Outside his professional attachments, he was elected to San Francisco’s exclusive Chitchat Club and known there for his surprising memory of English poetry and hymns.
He was also a family man, and is survived by Marguerite, his wife for 57 years, two daughters and seven grandchildren. For many years he would take his whole family on camping vacations in the high Sierras, and those of us invited to the Jukes’s large New Year parties would enjoy seeing three generations "pitching in" to entertain their guests.
Tom Jukes has been variously characterized as "disputatious, " "controversial," "a crusader," "feisty" and "outspoken." I believe that he would have accepted most of these descriptions. He belonged to an older generation that felt it to be their duty to speak out and to defend what they believed in even if it was not politically correct to do so. We may not see his like again.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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Manuscript received February 8, 2000. Revision accepted February 17, 2000.
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REFERENCES |
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TOPINTRODUCTIONMolecular evolutionControversies with...DDT: pros and consOther issuesREFERENCES |
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1. Jukes T. H. The pantothenic acid requirement of the chick. J. Biol. Chem. 1939;120:225-231
2. Jukes T. H. Molecules and Evolution 1966 Columbia University Press New York, NY.
3. Jukes T. H. DDT, human health and the environment. Environ. Aff. 1971;I:534-564
4. Jukes T. H. Public health significance of feeding low levels of antibiotics to animals. Adv. Appl. Microbiol. 1973;16:1-30[Medline]
5.
Jukes T. H. Laetrile for cancer. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 1976;236:1284-1286
6. Jukes T. H. Adventures with vitamins. Klemm W. R. eds. Discovery Processes in Modern Biology 1977:152-170 Robert E. Krieger New York, NY.
7. Jukes T. H. A quantitative evaluation of estrogens, including DES, in the diet. Am. Statistician 1982;30:273-277
8. Jukes T. H. Chasing a receding zero: impact of the zero threshold concept on actions of regulatory officials. J. Am. Coll. Toxicol. 1983;2:147-160
9. Jukes T. H. Samuel Lepkovsky (1899–1984): biographical sketch. J. Nutr. 1986;116:329-340
10.
Jukes T. H. Searching for magic bullets: early approaches to chemotherapy—antifolates, methotrexate—the Bruce F. Cain Memorial Award Lecture. Cancer Res. 1987;47:5528-5536
11. Jukes T. H. Nutrition science from vitamins to molecular biology. Annu. Rev. Nutr. 1990;10:1-20[Medline]
12.
Lepkovsky S., Jukes T. H. The effect of some reagents on the "filtrate factor" (a water-soluble vitamin belonging to the vitamin B complex and preventing a dietary dermatitis in chicks). J. Biol. Chem. 1936;114:109-121
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