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Prize-winning scientist honored with marker
Sunday, October 10, 1999 By Beth Hope-Cushey
When Justin Shawley of Donora attended a banquet last year, he had never heard of Dr. Christian B. Anfinsen.
Shawley was enlightened by Monessen Mayor and state Rep. Ted Harhai, D-Westmoreland.
Harhai told Shawley about Anfinsen, a native of Monessen, who had shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1972 for his studies involving the structural properties of proteins and their biological functions. Harhai said he was born in 1916, to Christian and Sophie Rasmussen Anfinsen and lived in Monessen until he was 11.
Harhai sought out Shawley for good reason. Shawley, 18, is widely known for his success in convincing the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to grant approval for state historical markers in Donora. He previously was successful in getting historical markers commemorating Donora's 1948 killer smog and for Cement City, an area of the town in which many of the houses were built of concrete and reinforced with steel.
"I was surprised when Harhai came over to me and asked me for help on acquiring [a historical] marker for Anfinsen," Shawley said. "He said he heard about me and knew I had gotten the two markers in Donora. Everything worked out. I helped Monessen acquire their first historic marker."
The new marker, dedicated Oct. 1 in front of the Monessen Public Library, was a guaranteed marker for the city in Shawley's eyes.
"Only so many markers are given each year and I seem to think certain events or people are more likely to receive markers," he said. "When I learned about Anfinsen and his accomplishments, I was almost certain Monessen would receive a marker."
Anfinsen began his career in 1943 as an assistant professor of biological chemistry at Harvard University, where he stayed until 1950. From 1950 to 1962 he was the director of the laboratory of cellular physiology and metabolism at the National Heart Institute in Bethesda, Md. His awards included a Rockefeller Foundation Public Service Award 1954 and a Guggenheim Fellowship for research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel in 1958. From 1962 to 1982 he received several honorary degrees and held professorships at several universities.
While serving as president of the American Society of Biological Chemists and on the Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Anfinsen was an editor for the magazine "Advances in Protein Chemistry," was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Danish Academy.
Anfinsen shared the Nobel Prize with Stanford Moore and William H. Stelin. Their work resulted in a pathway for future investigations in protein chemistr, and opened the door for major breakthroughs that involved hundreds, possibly thousands of enzymes. Their conclusion were used for research in disease and cancer.
Anfinsen died in 1995 at 79 of an apparent heart attack in his home in Baltimore.
Beth Hope-Cushey is a free-lance writer.
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