Go to Meeting Minutes [ November 18, 1986 ]
We have experienced during the past half century a remarkable revolution in our understanding of the nature of life. In the 1930's, as had been true for centuries, Biology was essentially taxonomic and descriptive. In the 1980's, Biology is experimental; the mechanisms of life are studied at the molecular-cellular levels. As singular as the shift itself is the relatively small number of persons--mainly trained as chemists or physicists--who initiated, catalyzed, and nurtured the revolution. Moreover, a correspondingly small group of universities were involved. In the U.S., these were centered in the Boston-Washington corridor, in Indiana and Illinois, and in California.
A member of this small coterie of pioneers in molecular-cellular biology was Dean Fraser. Born in 1916 in Wells River, Vt., the son of a Congregational minister, Dean received his preparatory education at Phillips Exeter Academy and his undergraduate work in chemistry at Harvard University. Dean's graduate work in organic chemistry at the University of Illinois required only three years; he received his Ph.D. degree in 1941. Dean then worked at Monsanto for four years, where he developed a method of synthesis of DDT that has remained unsurpassed. He then left applied science and proceeded to the California Institute of Technology (as a Fellow), to Princeton University (as a Research Assistant Professor), and to the Virus Laboratory at the University of California-Berkeley (as an Assistant and later Associate Research Biochemist).
Dean came to Indiana University in 1955 as Associate Professor and was promoted to Professor in 1960. The following year, as an NSF Fellow, he helped to establish an Institute of Genetics Research at the University of Koln, Germany. In 1970-77 Dean chaired the Department of Microbiology at Indiana University and then continued on the faculty for the remainder of his career.
Along with other pioneers of molecular-cellular biology, Dean began to apply his extensive knowledge of chemistry and physics to fundamental biological phenomena during the decade of the 1940's. He recognized early that at that time the living cells most amenable to physico-chemical manipulation were bacteria, most notably Escherichia coli. Furthermore, he realized that manipulation at the genetic level would be accomplished most readily by employing bacterial viruses as vectors. While at the Virus Laboratory, Dean made valuable technical contributions; additionally, with Robley Williams, he discovered how viral DNA enters bacterial cells.
By 1955 Dean recognized that molecular-cellular biology had entered its period of adolescence and, although he would continue bench research, he correctly foresaw the development of a critical need: the necessity to train both undergraduate and graduate students in the new biology. Accordingly, at Indiana University, Dean each year taught both lecture and laboratory courses in basic virology and in immunology while simultaneously maintaining an extensive research program (jointly with Professor Henry Mahler in Biochemistry). Dean's research laboratory provided training to students who ranged in level from postdoctorals to graduates to undergraduates and to honors high schoolers. As impressively, Dean organized and taught pioneering courses in viral-bacterial genetics and in the theory and practice of novel instrumentation!
As molecular-cellular biology matured in the 1960's, Dean recognized that he could provide valuable contributions in four additional aspects: (a) recruitment of outstanding, younger molecular-cellular biologists to our faculty; (b) personal teaching about the revolution in biology to large numbers of students in freshman courses and in the upper class non-majors course; (c) awakening the public-at-large to the consequences of overpopulation (ironically, an undesirable spinoff of the newer knowledge in biology including that of Dean's own success in DDT synthesis); and (d) serving as an historian of the birth and early childhood of molecular-cellular biology.
In these various endeavors, Dean was again highly successful. As Chairman of Microbiology and as a long-term, exceptionally vigorous member of the Biological Sciences Executive Committee--Dean was able to recruit a nucleus of young, superb, molecular-cellular biologists whose presence then attracted additional fine young scientists. Thus Biology at Indiana University now enjoys a critical mass of productive faculty in this field.
As molecular-cellular biology entered adulthood during the past score of years, Dean shifted from teaching advanced technical courses to that of freshman biology. His teaching at this level was received with enthusiasm by the students. He also developed for advanced undergraduates who lacked background in science a course in molecular-cellular biology called "The Strategy of Life". One of his goals was to give this important group of students an idea of how modern biologists go about doing their work, showing how most progress comes from studying things that have little or nothing to do with the ultimate application of the results of the research.
In the area of biological education to the public, Dean first conducted seminars for Planned Parenthood of South Central Indiana (PPSCI) on the dangers of overpopulation. He wrote a pamphlet for PPSCI and later expanded this into a book, The Population Problem, published by the Indiana University Press in 1971. His book remains to this day a very useful introduction to a highly controversial dilemma.
As an historian of the development of molecular-cellular biology, Dean first wrote a book entitled Viruses and Molecular Biology published by Macmillan in 1967. More recently, he wrote a manuscript entitled How to Stumble on a Cure for Cancer. This essay, not yet submitted for publication, will make a valuable contribution to our understanding of how the revolution in biology was accomplished.
During the most recent decade, Dean was the prime mover in initiating computer facilities and utilization for academic missions in the Biology Department. He served on numerous computer-use committees and originated and taught for the past three years a well-subscribed course on "Computers in Biology".
Dean always enjoyed working with tools and gadgets, both in his scientific work and in non-scientific pursuits. He developed items of equipment for analysis of cells and of cell contents and was a pioneer in organizing and supervising the instrument center and the electron microscope facility in Jordan Hall. In his backyard, Dean built an artist's studio for his wife, Rosemary, and an Elliptical greenhouse. He had earlier built a house in California and, more recently, had constructed three A-frame homes for summer use in Greensboro, Vermont.
Dean had a strong love for music participation. He was a member of the Harvard Glee Club, the Berkeley Chamber Singers, and the Koln Bach Verein. In Bloomington he was a charter member (and the tubist) of the Distinguished Ad Hoc Dixieland Jazz Group. While in Koln, Dean began to glide; he returned with a German glider and spent many hours soaring over the Bloomington area. Dean also enjoyed riding a motorcycle to and from work each day.
Dean was outgoing, incredibly imaginative and perceptive, and he told wonderful jokes. He described himself as "captious, contumacious, and churlous". His renowned ability to choose precise words in any situation stemmed from his enjoyment of language. He had an extraordinary ability to slash through the irrelevancies of any discussion and get to the critical point. Whether it was a committee meeting, a scientific talk, a seminar, or his radio and television shows, it was Dean who after someone's complicated or obtuse presentation could make everything beautifully clear and understandable in a few words.
Who else but Dean would submit the following paragraph in a faculty annual report:
He (DF) questions whether anyone reads these reports, on which he spends a certain amount of time and considerable thought. If, for instance, the first person to read this calls Fraser, he will secure thereby an invitation to dinner. Fraser's wife is one of the best cooks in Bloomington.
Dean made that offer year after year with no takers.
It might seem obvious that Dean cannot be characterized in 50 words or less. But his daughter, Jennie, did it easily in 1965 when she wrote the sketch which won Dean the title of Father of the Year:
He's a real neat guy. He is always either digging ditches or filling them in or eating lunch. Everyday he offers us kids our choice of a punch in the nose or a punch in the stomach.
Or, there is Karl Schuessler's even briefer description:
He is a good egghead. We need good eggheads.
In recognition of Dean Fraser's distinguished career, be it resolved that this memorial resolution become part of the minutes of the Bloomington Faculty Council (of which he was a member at the time of his death) and that copies be sent to Professor Fraser's wife Rosemary; to his sister, Mrs. Dallas Nolan; and to his seven children and seven grandchildren.
Eugene D. Weinberg Walter A. Konetzka
Commemorated by the Bloomington Faculty Council: November 18, 1986