"The Origins of Molecular Biology and Molecular Medicine." May 20, 1986. Recording of a Pauling lecture. Produced by Medical Television, University of Alabama,
Birmingham.
Working with Karl Landsteiner on Immunochemistry. (1:43)
Transcript
Linus Pauling: Well, I gave a lecture, Grand Rounds, at Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research
in 1936. One of the people in my lecture was Karl Landsteiner. He had discovered the
blood groups in 1900. He asked if I would come to his laboratory to talk with him,
which I did. And later, when I was lecturing at Cornell, he came up to Cornell, to
Ithaca, for a week, and gave me an intensive course - one of the best courses probably
anyone ever got - in immunology, immunochemistry. So he asked if I could explain his
observations on direction of apoproteins with analogous antiserum. And I didn't know
anything about immunology and couldn't explain. But I began thinking and after four
years, formulated my ideas. There were, at that time, two general ideas about how
biological substances can show specificity - enzymes, antibodies, the gene producing
replicates of itself and so on. One is the idea that in some way, the molecule produces
a replicate of itself. The other idea about biological specificity was the lock and
key idea. In 1940, I published a paper on the structure of antibodies and the nature
of serological reactions.
Clip
Creator: Linus Pauling Associated: Karl Landsteiner Clip ID: 1986v.9-landsteiner
Full Work
Creator: Linus Pauling Associated: University of Alabama at Birmingham
