Karl Maramorosch (January 16, 1915 – May 9, 2016) was an Austrian-born American virologist, entomologist, and plant pathologist. A centenarian and polyglot, he conducted research on viruses, mycoplasmas, rickettsiae, and other micro-organisms; and their transmission to plants through insect vectors in many parts of the world. He is the co-author of a textbook on techniques in virology and is the author of numerous papers on the biology and ecology of plant viruses, their hosts, and vectors. He received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 1980 for his contribution to the study of crop pathogens.
Early life and education
Maramorosch was born in Vienna on January 16, 1915,[1] where his family had escaped to from Soroki present day Moldova, during the World War I. His family was Jewish.[2] His Polish father was a graduate of the Vienna Agricultural University. His mother was from Croatia and she was a gifted pianist who could speak German, Italian, French, Serbo-Croat and English. Along with his siblings he spoke to his father in Polish and in German with his mother. He grew up in Kołomyja, Poland (now Ukraine) where he attended primary and secondary schools (Gimnazjum Kazimierza Jagiellończyka) and from age of seven took piano lessons for twelve years, graduating from the Moniuszko Conservatory in Stanisławów (Ivano-Frankivsk) in 1934. At age thirteen he became inspired to become a research virologist, hearing about the work of Professor Rudolf Weigl in Lwow (Lviv) from his older brother, who was Weigl’s student at the Medical School. Weigl worked on Rickettsia prowazekii and by inoculating lice and maintaining them on volunteers, he had developed a vaccine against epidemic typhus.[3]
In 1938, Maramorosch received his Agricultural Engineer degree from the Warsaw Agricultural University (SGGW).
In 1939, after the Nazi invasion of Poland, Maramorosch and his wife fled to Romania, where both were interned in Polish refugee camps for the following four years. After the Soviet army liberated Romania Maramorosch continued his graduate studies at the Bucharest Polytechnic, choosing plant pathology as his major.[3]
Mechanical transmission of viruses and phytoplasmas to insect vectors
Maramorosch's scientific career began at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. From 1949-60 he was a faculty member at the Rockefeller University in New York. He modified Weigl’s procedure of liceinoculation, adopting it to micro-injection of plant pathogenic viruses and phytoplasmas into leafhoppervectors. This permitted him to obtain the first evidence that certain plant pathogens multiply not only in plants, but also in specific invertebrate animal vectors.[3]
Invertebrate cell culture
Since 1956, when Maramorosch first cultured insect cells for use in the study of viruses, he had been an active contributor to the field of invertebrate pathology and to the study of plant and animal viruses, viroids and phytoplasmas. His research in invertebrate tissue cultures laid a foundation for the uses of invertebrate-based in vitro expression systems, as these support post-translational modification unlike prokaryotic cell cultures.[5] These systems are used in applications that range from basic research to industrial use, and in fields that range from agriculture to medicine, pharmaceutical drug discovery, and mammalian cell gene delivery.[3] As of 1996, the Mitsuhashi-Maramorosch insect culture medium for culturing insect cells was a widely used standard medium.[6]
Basic and applied research and teaching ( 1960-1980s)
In 1980, Maramorosch was awarded the Wolf Prize in Agriculture, often called the Agriculture Nobel Prize, for his work on interactions between insect vectors and plant pathogens. Numerous further awards followed, including the Jurzykowski Foundation Award, the AIBS Award, and two Fulbright awards.[3]
Maramorosch was married to Warsaw-born wife Irene Ludwinowska. Irene became a librarian in the New York Public Library, where she worked for the following 30 years. They had one daughter, Lydia Ann Trammell Maramorosch, born 1949 in New York.[3]
Maramorosch died of natural cause at the age of 101 years in Poland while visiting family.[7]
Editorial work
Maramorosch continued, through 2015, to be active in the field by conducting research, publishing, presenting his findings at professional meetings, and organizing international conferences to promote new advances in the field. In his career of over 60 years, Maramorosch published as author or co-author more than 800 scientific papers and 100 books. A partial list follows:[3]
Biological Transmission of Disease Agents, 1962.
Comparative Symptomatology of Coconut Diseases of Unknown Etiology, 1964.
