In 1969, soon after starting my PhD-study at the
Laboratory of Electron Microscopy, we were visited by LeRoy Bertsch who worked
with Arthur Kornberg (1918-2007) at Stanford. He was staying in Zürich and was
considering to come to our lab in Amsterdam for a second half of his
sabbatical.
As a DNA-biochemist he was interested in the possible
connection between the bacterial chromosome and the plasma membrane in Escherichia coli. He was attracted by
the new technique of freeze-fracturing developed in Zürich and applied in our
lab to bacteria by Nanne Nanninga.
I was thrilled by this great, gentle american, who
also showed interest in my project on the effect of detergents on the structure
of the E. coli nucleoplasm
(nucleoid). I remember how he criticized my work in a very quiet but knowledgeable
way. Although I now see with great astonishment that I did not acknowledge him
in my very first paper in 1970, I vividly remember how he helped me with
writing and composing it. I acknowledged him at least in one of the last papers
I discussed with him (on DNA segregation; Mol. Microbiol. 33, 959, 1999) for
his corrections and advice.
Electron
micrograph of a shadowed replica from frozen and fractured E. coli cells,
showing the inner membrane face (IMF) of the plasma membrane.
He decided to apply the freeze-fracture technique to
plasmolyzed E. coli cells. On
Saturday(s) I would bring him and his two sons from their house in Laren to the
lab. While patiently waiting for the machine to reach vacuum, I still see them
playing their different recorders in that gruesome freeze-fracture room.
Several years later, coming with my wife and friends
to an Asilomar conference, we enjoyed the most generous hospitality of LeRoy
and his wife Mary Grace. Many visits to Bryant Street and the lab would follow.
Every time when attending the group meetings at Stanford, I was impressed by the
presentations of the students, the remarks of Arthur Kornberg and by the
discussions with Arthur and LeRoy afterwards.
Group meeting circa 1984: from left to right, LeRoy Bertsch, Kazuhisa Sekimizu, Arie van der Ende, Tania Baker Satoko Maki, Tohru Ogawa, Hisaji Maki, Barbara Funnell. From Robert S. Fuller. Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 15, 2-17 (2008).
April 4th,
2006. Arthur Kornberg, LeRoy Bertsch and Naryan.
Once, when visiting Amsterdam around 1989, I told
LeRoy that I wanted to measure the superhelicity of chromosomal DNA under
different growth conditions by using plasmids. Thoughtful and patiently he
explained to me the pitfalls of such isolations and measurements. Later, when
understanding more about DNA-topoisomers, I was grateful for his advice which I
had followed up: "Don't go into that technical jungle!"
But he did not only point me the way in DNA biochemistry. For Lidie and me, LeRoy and Mary Grace showed us "the american way": how to hold and eat a big Hamburger and to enjoy a real milkshake; they explained us american football and politics, showed us Yosemite and Monterey and told us stories about the civil war and "el Camino Real". Later, when long walks had become too difficult, he waited patiently in his green colonels-car until I had spotted my birds at, for instance, Elkhorn Slough or Pinnacles National Parks.
Mary Grace and LeRoy Bertsch, 2015.
We will remember their unsurpassed hospitality in
Palo Alto, which included lending us their VW-bus in 1974 for a drive
throughout the South-West and Mary Grace's Toyota in 2014 for visiting San
Diego; LeRoy's carefully prepared oranges for breakfast; during our walks Mary
Grace's stories about computer-celebrities in their neighborhood; their
friendliness and friendship.
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