| CARL FRANZ ROBINOW enjoyed a long and productive life as a Professor of Microbiology, as a researcher of note in bacterial and fungal cytology, and as a stimulating and humorous companion to a wide range of colleagues, friends and students He was born in Hamburg, Germany on the 10th April 1909 and died the 20th October 2006 in London, Ontario, Canada. He was the second child ( 8 min. ahead of his identical twin, Richard) in the family of Franz and Marianne Robinow, one of the fifth generation of a prominent business and professional family of long-time residents of Hamburg until 1934-35 when they spread far and wide about the world. Schooling in Germany was followed by medical studies in Freiburg and Vienna, finally attaining his M.D. in Hamburg in 1934. Following formative research experience in Denmark, England, and the U.S.A. he came to Canada in 1949 and an appointment in the then Department of Bacteriology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Western Ontario. The Department he joined was small and busy with an active clinical laboratory, a teaching program for medical students, and research. He did more than his share in all aspects of that program in a lively post-war medical school. His research work brought honours: He was awarded the Harrison Prize in 1957 and then elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1960. He was elected President of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists in 1962 and of the Canadian Society for Cell Biology in 1968. After retirement he was declared a Professor Emeritus in 1978, and then awarded an honorary D.Sc. by his University in 1983. He was truly appreciated as a Professor and as an authority in his fields.
He became interested in the structure of cells and tissues as a student and after graduation he assisted one of his teachers, E.G. Nauck, with the photomicrography of tissue cultures, thus joining an early phase of an important aspect of biology with his first paper. It was this interest that took him in 1935 to the laboratory of Albert Fischer at the Institute for Cell Culture in Copenhagen. Other studies included the cell boundaries of sponges illustrating his lifelong curiosity in biology. A further need to explore tissue culture and cytology took him to England in 1937 to the resourceful laboratory of Dr. Honor B. Fell at the Strangeways Laboratory, Cambridge. A chance meeting with J. O. Bland set him into collaborative study of virus infections in epithelial cell cultures leading to a classic paper in 1939 on the multiplication of vaccinia virus. This work was interrupted by the onset of war and his internment, being still a German citizen, on the Isle of Man for some months before he was one of a number considered helpful to the war effort. He returned to living in Cambridge and working at The Strangeways Laboratory until 1947.
His work had turned to bacterial cytology in 1940 when he used the modified Giemsa staining technique that G. Piekarski had used to show minute “nucleoids” in bacterial cells and applied his considerable skills in the fixation, staining and photomicrography of cytological preparations. The result was a stunning demonstration of these DNA-containing structures (Feulgen positive) that appeared to divide directly in concert with cell division and, in the absence of other evidence, well worth considering as nucleoids. Almost nothing was known at that time about the structure of bacterial cells, consequently his 1942 and 1944 papers on studies of “the nuclear apparatus” of representative Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria had a considerable response. Rene Dubos published an influential book in 1945, The Bacterial Cell, summarizing what was known and he had persuaded Carl Robinow to include in it a 20-page and fully illustrated Addendum on bacterial nuclei. Bacteriologists in universities in the USA sought and arranged a year and a half visiting tour(1948-49) with longer stays in four major institutions(Yale, Indiana, Purdue, and Washington) to lecture and demonstrate his cytological techniques. At that time phase microscopy and electron microscopy were not yet useful. During that influential tour he visited Robert Murray at the University of Western Ontario where work had started on the cytology of bacteriophage infections of bacterial cells which was accomplished using his techniques and advice; the outcome of this visit was his acceptance in 1949 of an Associate Professorship in that Department of Bacteriology and Immunology, where he was to stay for the rest of his career.
In Canada he continued studies of bacterial structure concentrating first with light microscopy on the basic cytology of spores of Bacillus species and explored the peculiar “popping” of nuclear material to the spore surface when exposed to acid oxidizers. He then explored the possibilities of gaining ultra -structural information by electron microscopy with Kieth Porter (Rockefeller Institute). He collaborated with Robert Murray on a demonstration of a differential staining of the cytoplasmic surface of bacterial cells; at that time the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane by either light or electron microscopy, which came in the 50’s with the development of metal staining of EM sections an area of structural research actively pursued in the Department. His observations on sporeformers stimulated the parallel interest and pioneer studies in the Department by P. C. Fitz-James on the finer structure and biochemistry of spores and sporulation. His stained preparations and phase microscopy of live growing cells became convincing that nuclear division in bacteria was direct separation of a single element rather than a mitotic event involving multiple tiny chromosomes; for a while there was a serious polemical argument which was discomforting until the single linkage group in coliform genetics settled things. He was an indomitable contender in meetings of that time.
In the mid-50’s Carl Robinow turned his attention to study of the structure and mode of division of the moulds Mucor hiemalis and Phycomyces blakesleanus and led to a comparative light- and electron-microscopical study of the former with his student E. K. McCully. A series of profusely illustrated papers illuminated the behaviour of dividing nuclei. In particular, they demonstrated the formation, distribution and movements of the bundle of microtubules forming the axis during division, in fact the spindle and associated structures of mitosis and meiosis. In the 60’s he studied the remarkable fungus Basidiobolus ranarum whose peculiar growth habit and multiple small chromosomes fascinated him. It required phase cine-photomicroscopy as well as light and electron microscopic cytology to follow growth and division in what looked like a fungal filament; but it became clear that after duplication of the cytoplasmic content half of it migrated into a forming branch tube, each “cell” migrating on into a new compartment, then on to perform again. He believed that it behaved more like an amoeba that happened to make a fungus-like cell wall. Aside from influential papers many entertaining and instructive seminars resulted. In the 70’s and 80’s he worked on a wide range of yeasts prompted by earlier work with the classic Saccharomyces cerevisiae whose nuclear structure had been subject to controversy for decades. He found this was largely because the chromatin therein has no affinity for conventional nuclear stains while the nucleolus is deeply stained. This realization made for useful descriptions which he accompanied with electron microscopic descriptions of the organization of these nuclei. His light micrographs were very much his own work as were the preparations he studied and for electron microscopy he appreciated the technical mastery of John Marak; both light an EM prints required dedicated dark-room time and were widely appreciated for illustrations. Authoritative papers on other yeasts ( notably Lipomyces , Leucosporidium and Rhodosporidium spp., and Schizosacchharomyces pombe) and the range of his work became summarized in major reviews written with P. Matile and H. Moor in “The Yeasts”(1969), with Byron Johnson in the book “The Yeasts”(1985) and written in two parts with J. A. Barnett in the journal Yeast (2002) as major overviews of yeast cytology.
While his technical approaches to research were cytological, the interpretation of observations and his insights were on a broader base including ecological, behavioural and evolutionary implications. He sustained an idiosyncratic view of the nature of cells and cell theory and the practice of biological research that gave colour to conversation and serious discussions.
His retirement in 1974 made no difference to his productivity and enthusiasm in research for he carried on in his own lab at UWO for 25 years thereafter. He welcomed visitors with broad interests who would enjoy discussing microscopy, effective cytological preparations and the best of photomicrography. He had many amusing anecdotes and there was always laughter and good conversation in his company. He would never avoid a cytological challenge as happened when he was consulted by E. R. Angert in the 90’s about how to study the structure of a remarkable very large bacterium, Epulopiscium fishelsoni, which reproduces by forming multiple new cells in its cytoplasm. This was remniscent of Metabacterium polyspora with its multiple endospores, which he had worked on some fifty years before and Dr. Angert also had worked on recently. They published a paper in 1998 when he was 89. It was another venture in comparative cytology. No less remarkable for a retiree was the collaborative paper “The bacterial nucleoid revisited” with E. Kellenberger in 1994 and the major review (noted above) in 2002 when he has 93. It was a very active retirement.
His marriage to Rosie Derenburg in 1938 added a joyous home life and a much needed balance to the intensity of his work in the laboratory. They settled first in Cambriidge, UK, and started family life with two sons to come who were a joy to them, Anthony (now a documentary film maker and actor in Montreal, QC) and Oliver (now a psychiatrist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC). It was an extraordinarily happy union of two remarkably different characters with one out-going, very sociable and musical versus a quieter, thoughtful and bookish mate. Neither of them were adept in the kitchen or in “household economics”and life seemed to abound with laughter and near disasters; with it all there was a lively social life. It was a sad day when Rosie died in 1972 of a cancer and he felt that loss forever. In 1976 there was a brief and unsuccessful second marriage ending in divorce. Thereafter he lived a somewhat monastic home-life in very simple surroundings and continuing after retirement his timetable of days in his laboratory. Despite his way of life he was not a troglodyte and much enjoyed time out, wide-ranging conversations and events with a circle of friends and visits from his boys. Unfortunately his health deteriorated after a fall in 2003 made necessary medical and surgical adventures leading to life in a nursing home. In these latter years, even with major gaps in his memory and aphasia, he remained a gracious gentleman much loved by his nurses, friends and family. |
