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We might slice them into a salad, savor them in a sauce, wonder at their power to intoxicate or poison, marvel at their multifarious presence in the forest - but few of us realize that mushrooms, humbly thriving on decay, are crucial to life on Earth as we know it. In this book, a distinguished biologist, long intrigued by the secret life of fungi, reveals the power of these curious organisms - not quite animal, not quite plant - to enchant and instruct, to nourish and make way for all sorts of superior forms of nature. In a style at once learned and quirky, personal and commanding, Elio Schaechter imparts the fascinating minutiae and the weighty implications of his subject - a primarily microscopic life form that nonetheless accounts for up to two tons of matter for every human on the planet.
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Available as an exclusive product with a limited print run, Encyclopedia of Microbiology, is a comprehensive survey of microbiology, edited by world-class researchers. Each article is written by an expert in that specific domain and includes a glossary, list of abbreviations, defining statement, introduction, further reading and cross-references to other related encyclopedia articles. Written at a level suitable for university undergraduates, the breadth and depth of coverage will appeal beyond undergraduates to professionals and academics in related fields.
(An exciting introduction to the world of microbes. Covers...)
An exciting introduction to the world of microbes. Covers the most pertinent information related to the study of microbes, including microbial activity; structure and function; growth, inheritance, physiology, and diversity; and biological interactions. Engages students in the learning process with a clear style and unique perspective. Serves as a textbook for upper-level undergraduate courses in general microbiology.
(Eukaryotic Microbes presents chapters hand-selected by th...)
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Moselio Schaechter is an American scientist, whose work focuses on bacteriology and microbiology. He spent most of his research career working on growth physiology and bacterial cell organization.
Background
Moselio Schaechter was born on April 6, 1928, in Milan, Italy. He is the only child of Victoria (Vicia) Wachsmann and Abraham Isaac Schaechter. His father went to Italy after the First World War and settled there, and brought his mother from Vienna to live in Italy. His parents came from a typical Polish Jewish background, both from shtetls (small towns) in the Southern part of Poland, in Galicia. Their families would now be called Orthodox, although in the shtetls there was no other choice. They lived in Milan until Moselio was eight, then they moved to Turin for three years. In 1938, Italy enacted the racial laws (the Manifesto of Race), overtly because Mussolini yielded to pressure from Hitler, these laws mandated, among other things, that all the Jews who had resided in Italy for less than 20 years had to leave. In 1939, they traveled to Genoa, intending to go to Australia, but problems with visas never let them do it. After three months in Genoa, they went back for a year to Milan and eventually left for Ecuador in September 1940, a few months after Italy entered the war. In 1950 Elio moved to the United States in order to get higher education. He stayed In the United States but visits Italy and Ecuador and considers them to be his homelands.
Education
In both Milan and Turin, Moselio Schaechter went to a Jewish school. Schaechter was not exactly studious and did only above average work at school, but had an intense passion for a mishmash of facts. Schaechter started his schooling in Quito in the 7th grade, which was already high school. Colegio Nacional Mejía, or “El Mejia” as the school was known, was one of the imposing buildings of his youth. It was a neo-classic building with large columns in front, and it extended for a couple of city blocks. It was about four stories high, made of brick that did not get stuccoed over until many years later. There were taught some 3000 students in six grades, all male. It was modeled after the grand European gymnasium and lycée and succeeded reasonably well in its mission. Everything about it, from the building itself to what went on inside, spoke of substance. As a "national" high school, it received the support and encouragement of political and business leaders, many of whom had graduated from it. It was considered the academic jewel of the nation. It is a source of enormous pride to be an alumnus of El Mejia; to be able to carry the lofty appellation of "mejia" is a state of near grace that Schaechter relishes to this day.
Schaechter was not so competitive that he had to get top grades consistently, but he wanted to pass my courses comfortably. The knowledge of history and geography he had acquired by reading the children’s encyclopedia from start to finish made his studying easy. He had also had a couple of years of Latin in Italy, which gave him a leg up on his classmates. Once in a while, he cheated on exams but kept it to a minimum partly because he was scared of being caught, partly because usually he had studied enough to know most of the answers. On the other hand, he didn’t want to be one of the rare few who never cheated. He liked special projects and, as soon as there were some to be done, he eagerly jumped in. One of his first was making a poster on which he had traced drawings of four skulls of different human ancestors and then explaining it to all who came by. Another time he made a display of a dissected mouse pickled in alcohol with its innards prominently shown.
After reading the book Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif, Elio became fascinated with microbiology and looked up to microbiologists as heroes. He was able to get some hands-on experience doing science while working in a pharmaceutical company’s research department during high school, and his interest in science and research continued to flourish.
When Schaechter finished high school, he had to work for a year because his father told Schaechter that he didn’t have enough money to pay for his going to the university right away. Schaechter enrolled in the School of Medicine in 1947. He didn’t think of himself as a future physician, and the first chance he got, he abandoned that course. Still, his two and a half years in medical school allowed him to get a taste of that profession.
When Schaechter came to the United States for graduate school, he had a difficult time. Elio shied away from a lot of interesting research questions because he felt like he didn’t have the foundation necessary to pursue highly quantitative research. Thanks to my friends’ interventions, Schaechter was accepted at the University of Kansas, receiving a Master of Science in bacteriology and then got a Doctor of Philosophy in microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania working in microbial cytology, as it was then called.
After getting a Ph.D., Elio Schaechter got drafted into the Army and was called upon to “fight the Battle of the Potomac,” at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Working under Joe Smadel, he determined that rickettsiae, the agents of various kinds of typhus, divide by binary fission, thus are bacteria. Also, he found that rickettsiae have a cell wall, much like ordinary bacteria.
Schaechter did a postdoc with Ole Maaløe in Copenhagen, at the inception of the Copenhagen School of Growth Physiology. Together with Nils Ole Kjeldgaard, they discovered that Salmonella exists in a continuum of physiological states, depending on the growth rate. Slow growing bugs are small and have few ribosomes, and the converse is true when they grow rapidly. They also did a number of "shifts" back and forth between rich and poor media. In an unrelated study, Schaechter also found out that relatively fast-growing E. coli make DNA throughout the cell cycle. Elio and his colleagues made an astonishing discovery about how the chromosomes in bacteria interact with the bacterial cell membrane during cell division/replication. Essentially, the point in the chromosome where replication begins binds to the cell membrane when (and only when) the DNA is newly made. This was a surprising result, and it was really exciting to answer one of these big mechanistic questions in the field.
Schaechter’s first job was at the medical school of the University of Florida. In 1962, he went to Tufts in Boston and stayed there for 33 years. With collaborators, he worked on a number of issues related to growth and cell division. For example, they discovered that bacteria possess polyribosomes and that these contain mRNA. After a prolonged sally into lipid metabolism, his lab worked assiduously on the role of the cell membrane in DNA synthesis and chromosome segregation. The last major discovery in his lab was that E. coli’s origin of chromosome replication sticks to the cell membrane, but does so only when recently synthesized. Under this condition, this region of the chromosome is half methylated (the old strand is methylated, the new strand not yet). They also found that methylation of this region is much delayed relative to the rest of the DNA. He trained 6 Ph.D. students and 32 postdoctoral fellows. He chaired the Department of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Tufts for 23 years.
After a fulfilling career as a faculty member running his own microbiology research laboratory, Elio has retired from conducting science at the bench but continues to be an active member of the scientific community. Currently, he is keeping busy communicating science through the American Society for Microbiology Small Things Considered blog, the This Week in Microbiology podcast, as well as giving various presentations and lectures.
The American Society for Microbiology awards the Moselio Schaechter Distinguished Service Award to recognize society members who contribute to scientific research and science education in the developing world.
Schaechter is an Honorary Member the American Society for Microbiology, which he served as the President in 1984. He has also chaired the editorial board of its newsletter, ASM News. He became a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 1974, served a term as a member of its board of governors from 1997 to 2000.
American Society for Microbiology
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United States
Connections
Schaechter and his wife Barbara had two children: Judy, who is a famed stained glass artist, and John, who works at the Zoo in Boston and is an avid rock climber and runner. Barbara, alas, died of cancer at the age of 56 after 33 years of marriage. In 1994, Elio married a childhood sweetheart, Edith and, thanks to her, retired and moved to San Diego in 1995.
Father:
Abraham Isaac Schaechter
Mother:
Victoria (Vicia) Wachsmann
late wife:
Barbara Schaechter
Daughter:
Judy Schaechter
Son:
John Schaechter
Wife:
Edith Schaechter
colleague:
Vincent Racaniello
Schaechter co-hosts the This Week in Microbiology podcast founded and hosted by Vincent Racaniello.
