He played football as an undergraduate, and in his senior year, he became team captain and was chosen to play end on the Indiana All-State team. In June of 1926, Stanley graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. His ambition was to become a football coach, but the course of his life was changed forever when an Earlham chemistry professor invited him on a trip to Illinois State University. Here, he was introduced to Roger Adams, an organic chemist, who inspired him to seek a career in chemical research. Stanley applied and was accepted as a graduate assistant in the fall of 1926.
In graduate school, Stanley worked under Adams, and his first project involved finding the stereochemical characteristics of biphenyl, a molecule containing carbon and hydrogen atoms. His second assignment was more practical; Adams was interested in finding chemicals to treat leprosy, and Stanley set out to prepare and purify compounds that would destroy the disease-causing pathogen. Stanley received his master's degree in 1927 and two years later was awarded his Ph.D. In the summer of 1930, he was awarded a National Research Council Fellowship to do postdoctoral studies with Heinrich Wieland at the University of Munich in Germany. Under Wieland's tutelage, Stanley extended his knowledge of experimental biochemistry by characterizing the properties of some yeast compounds.
This is a free page. This page contains 200 words. This
biography contains 1,571 words (approx. 5 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Wendell Meredith Stanley Access Pass.
