Francis Otto Schmitt papers

MIT News Office obituary: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1995/obit-schmitt.html

Francis Otto Schmitt was born November 23, 1903, and died October 3, 1995. He attended St. Louis public schools and during high school became interested in chemistry. Schmitt entered Washington University in 1920 as a premedical student and studied under Caswell Grave, J. P. Visscher, and S. W. Geiser, among others. Between his junior and senior years at Washington University, Schmitt studied general physiology at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, with a half-tuition scholarship. There, Robert Chambers introduced Schmitt to microdissection. Later that summer, at Chambers's invitation, Schmitt went to Salisbury Cove Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, to help Chambers carry out experimental work in preparation for a chapter for Cowdry's General Cytology. During his senior year, Schmitt continued to do cytological research and in 1924 published his first article, co-authored by Caswell Grave, "A Mechanism for the Coordination of the Movement of Cilia of Epithelia," in Science. Also with Grave, he wrote "A Mechanism for the Coordination and Regulation of Ciliary Movement As Revealed by Micro-dissection and Cytological Studies of Ciliated Cells in Mollusks," which appeared in the Journal of Morphology. Schmitt graduated from Washington University in 1924 with final honors and was made a member of Sigma Xi.

Interested in X-ray diffraction and tissue ultrastructure, and impressed with Washington University's facilities and Joseph Erlanger, Schmitt decided in 1924 to pursue his graduate studies in the physiology department at the Washington University Medical School, turning down a scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania. The first two years of his graduate training included both pre-clinical studies for the M.D. and research for the Ph.D. (Schmitt's father wanted him to be a surgeon.) After two years, Schmitt ceased his medical studies, with his father's agreement, and concentrated on his X-ray diffraction work on muscle and studies of kidney function. During this time Schmitt studied and worked with Herbert S. Gasser, George Bishop, Harvey Lester White, Arthur I. Kendall, and Joseph Erlanger. It was under Erlanger that Schmitt did his doctoral research. Erlanger assigned Schmitt the topic "The Irritability of Heart Muscle" for his thesis research, and in June 1927 Schmitt received his Ph.D. in Medical Science.

Schmitt pursued post-doctoral studies in three locations. With a National Research Council fellowship, he worked in the chemistry department at the University of California at Berkeley in 1927-1928 under G. N. Lewis. For seven weeks in 1928 he went to London to further his work on lipids in the laboratories of J. C. Drummond at University College, with the assistance of N. K. Adam and B. C. J. G. Knight. In 1929 Schmitt completed his post-doctoral studies at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Biologie in Berlin, first in the laboratory of Otto Warburg studying oxidation theory, then in the laboratory of Otto Meyerhof studying the gaseous metabolism of nerves.

Schmitt returned to Washington University in 1929 as assistant professor of zoology. Thereafter, he moved up in the ranks, becoming associate professor in 1934, professor in 1938, and in 1940, upon the retirement of Caswell Grave, Schmitt was made head of the zoology department. During these years Schmitt benefited from the assistance of and collaboration with his brother Otto, a physicist. Another collaborator was Richard S. Bear with whom Schmitt worked from 1935 to 1940. Schmitt and Bear investigated nerve structure using polarization optics and X-ray diffraction.

In 1941 Schmitt was asked by Karl Taylor Compton, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to join the faculty of the biology department. Schmitt joined the MIT staff as professor of biology, and in 1942, when biology department head S. C. Prescott retired, Schmitt assumed his responsibilities.

During World War II Schmitt's laboratory was devoted to research on burns, wound healing, and the production of synthetic surgical gut which could be used in military field hospitals. The remainder of Schmitt's work during the 1940s was devoted to groundbreaking research using electron microscopy. In 1941 the first electron microscope to be used in an academic biology department was installed at MIT. With C. E. Hall and M. A. Jakus, Schmitt studied the ultrastructure of nerve, collagen, muscle, and other fibrous proteins, making the department a center for investigation of ultrastructure. R. S. Bear, who had come to MIT with Schmitt, continued to collaborate with him on these studies.

Under Schmitt's administration, MIT's biology department grew and became distinguished in the areas of biophysics and biochemistry. In 1955, Schmitt was made Institute Professor in recognition of his exemplary achievements at the Institute. One of only three persons to have received that honor up to that time, Schmitt was released from his administrative responsibilities to enable him to devote himself exclusively to advanced teaching and research.

As a result of his multidisciplinary research interests, Schmitt founded the Neurosciences Research Program (NRP) in 1962. An interdisciplinary, inter-university organization, the NRP was Schmitt's means for promoting research in what he considered the last frontier of science, the brain and brain function. Comprised of staff and an international group of "Associates," outside experts who worked closely with the staff, the NRP's function was to hold meetings on very current topics and problems in the area of brain research and to publish quickly the results gleaned from those meetings. Bi-monthly three-day Work Sessions, semi-annual Stated Meetings, and occasional Intensive Study Programs, as well as other lectures and colloquia, were the vehicles for bringing together prominent scientists and engineers in various areas of science to discuss problems pertaining to the brain. Individuals from diverse disciplines who rarely interacted with each other professionally were invited to meet and discuss brain function. The NRP was established at the House of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Although largely supported by federal and private funds, the NRP enjoyed an academic affiliation with MIT.

In 1974 Schmitt became Institute Professor Emeritus at MIT, and Foundation Scientist at the NRP. The invisible college he founded had grown, developed, and flourished under his leadership. For the next seven years, Schmitt continued to be a vital part of the NRP, helping to guide and inspire its mission. By 1981 the NRP was in need of more space and a more secure financial base. When the Rockefeller University offered facilities and economic stability, the NRP moved to New York City. Schmitt remained at MIT to continue his research in molecular genetics.

Schmitt received many awards and honorary degrees, including the Alsop Award of the American Leather Chemists Association in 1947, the Albert Lasker Award of the American Public Health Association in 1956, the T. Duckett Jones Award of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation in 1963, the Sc.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1950, the Sc.D. from Washington University in 1952, the Sc.D. from the University of Chicago in 1957, the Sc.D. from Valparaiso University in 1959, the M.D. (h.c.) from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1964, the LL.D. from Wittenberg University in 1966, and the Sc.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981.

Schmitt was a member of many scientific and learned associations including the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Société Philomatique de Paris, and the Electron Microscope Society of America, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Schmitt served as a member of the National Advisory Health Council of the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council of the National Institutes of Health from 1969 to 1971. He was a trustee of the Massachusetts General Hospital beginning in 1947. He was a scientific advisor to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary from 1957 to 1964 and a member of the Board of Scientific Consultants for the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research from 1963 to 1975.

Schmitt married Barbara Hecker in 1927, and they had three children, David Francis, Robert Hecker, and Marion Elizabeth. Barbara Hecker Schmitt died in 1975.

from: https://biology.mit.edu/events/francis_o_schmitt_lecture

The Biology Department is proud to host the Francis O. Schmitt Lecture in honor of Dr. Schmitt who was a Professor of Biology, and held the position of Head of the Department from 1942-1955. When Dr. Schmitt assumed the Head, the Department included just a handful of faculty. Under his leadership, Biology was developed into a major Department at MIT. He also ran his lab’s research program, in the biochemistry and biophysics of nerves, and in neurosciences, over the same period.

Dr. Schmitt was appointed Institute Professor in 1955, a distinguished academic post awarded by MIT which recognizes outstanding achievement. He provided leadership to a number of scientific organizations, including serving on the boards of both MGH and McLean Hospital. He also founded the Neurosciences Research Program in 1962, which gave a focus through conferences and publications to research in the neurosciences throughout the world.