Microbiology and Immunology

WORLD OF MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY Fume hood

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also exposed Friend to medicine. After graduating from Hunter

College in 1944, she immediately enlisted in the U.S. Navy dur-

ing World War II, rising to the rank of lieutenant junior grade.

After the war, Friend entered graduate school at Yale

University, obtaining her Ph.D. in bacteriology in 1950. Soon

afterward, she was hired by the Memorial Sloan-Kettering

Institute for Cancer Research, and in 1952, became an associate

professor in microbiology at Cornell University, which had just

set up a joint program with the institute. During that time,

Friend became interested in cancer, particularly leukemia, a

cancer of blood-forming organs that was a leading killer of chil-

dren. Her research on the cause of this disease led her to believe

that, contrary to the prevailing medical opinion, leukemia in

mice is caused by a virus. To confirm her theory, Friend took

samples of leukemia tissue from mice and, after putting the

material through a filter to remove cells, injected it into healthy

mice. These animals developed leukemia, indicating that the

cause of the disease was a substance smaller than a cell. Using

an electron microscope, Friend was able to discover and photo-

graph the virus she believed responsible for leukemia.

However, when Friend presented her findings at the April

1956, annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer

Research, she was denounced by many other researchers, who

refused to believe that a virus was responsible for leukemia.

Over the next year support for Friend’s theory mounted, first as

Dr. Jacob Furth declared that his experiments had confirmed the

existence of such a virus in mice with leukemia. Even more

importantly, Friend was successful in vaccinating mice against

leukemia by injecting a weakened form of the virus (now called

the “Friend virus”) into healthy mice, so they could develop

antibodies to fight off the normal virus. Friend’s presentation of

a paper on this vaccineat the cancer research association’s 1957

meeting succeeded in laying to rest the skepticism that had

greeted her the previous year.

In 1962, Friend was honored with the Alfred P. Sloan

Award for Cancer Research and another award from the

American Cancer Society for her work. The next year she

became a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, an

organization that has members from all fifty states and more

than eighty countries. In 1966, Friend left Sloan-Kettering to

become a professor and director at the Center for

Experimental Cell Biology at the newly formed medical

school of New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital. During this time,

she continued her research on leukemia, and in 1972, she

announced the discovery of a method of altering a leukemia

mouse cell in a test tube so that it would no longer multiply.

Through chemical treatment, the malignant red blood cell

could be made to produce hemoglobin, as do normal cells.

Although the virus responsible for leukemia in mice has

been discovered, there is no confirmation that a virus causes

leukemia in humans. Likewise, her treatment for malignant

red blood cells has limited application, because it will not

work outside of test tubes. Nonetheless, Friend had pointed

out a possible cause of cancer and developed a first step

toward fighting leukemia (and possibly other cancers) by tar-

geting specific cells.

In 1976, Friend was elected president of the American

Association for Cancer Research, the same organization

whose members had so strongly criticized her twenty years

earlier. Two years later, she was chosen the first woman pres-

ident of the New York Academy of Sciences. Friend was long

active in supporting other women scientists and in speaking

out on women’s issues. During her later years, she expressed

concern over the tendency to emphasize patient care over

basic research, feeling that without sufficient funding for

research, new breakthroughs in patient care would be impos-

sible. Friend died on January 13, 1987, of lymphoma.

See alsoViral vectors in gene therapy; Virology; Virus repli-

cation; Viruses and responses to viral infection

FFume hoodUME HOOD

A fume hood is an enclosed work space in a laboratory that pre-

vents the outward flow of air. Fume hoods cab be designed for

work with inorganic or radioactive materials, or with biological

materials. Biological fume hoods can be equipped with filters,

to ensure that the air entering and exiting the cabinet is sterile.

This minimizes the risk of exposure of laboratory personnel to

biological agents that could be a health threat. Also, the work

surfaces and materials inside the fume hood are protected from

Charlotte Friend, an important cancer researcher.

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