Under Wieland's tutelage, Stanley extended his knowledge of experimental biochemistry by characterizing the properties of some yeast compounds.
Stanley returned to the United States in 1931 to accept the post of research assistant at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City. Stanley was assigned to work with W. J. V. Osterhout , who was studying how living cells absorb potassium ions from seawater. Stanley was asked to find a suitable chemical model that would simulate how a marine plant called Valonia functions. He discovered a way of using a water-insoluble solution sandwiched between two layers of water to model the way the plant exchanged ions with its environment. The work on Valonia served to extend Stanley's knowledge of biophysical systems, and it introduced him to current problems in biological chemistry.
In 1932, Stanley moved to the Rockefeller Institute's Division of Plant Pathology in Princeton, New Jersey. He was primarily interested in studying viruses. Viruses were known to cause diseases in plants and animals, but little was known about how they functioned. His assignment was to characterize viruses and determine their composition and structure.
He began work on a virus that had long been associated with the field of virology.
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