Wendell Meredith Stanley

As a member of National Research Council he moved temporarily for academic work with Heinrich Wieland in Munich before he returned to the States in 1931. On return he was approved as an assistant at The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. He remained with the Institute until 1948, becoming an Associate Member in 1937, and a Member in 1940.[2] In 1948, he became Professor of Biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and built the Virus Laboratory and a free-standing Department of Biochemistry building, which is now called Stanley Hall.

Stanley's work contributed to on lepracidal compounds, diphenyl stereochemistry and the chemistry of the sterols. His research on the virus causing the mosaic disease in tobacco plants led to the isolation of a nucleoprotein which displayed tobacco mosaic virus activity.

Stanley was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1940 and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1941.[3][4] He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 1946. In 1949, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[5] His other notable awards included the Rosenburger Medal, Alder Prize, Scott Award, the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement[6] and the AMA Scientific Achievement Award. He was also awarded honorary degrees by many universities both American and foreign, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the University of Paris. Most of the conclusions Stanley had presented in his Nobel-winning research were soon shown to be incorrect (in particular, that the crystals of mosaic virus he had isolated were pure protein, and assembled by autocatalysis).[7][8]

Stanley married Marian Staples (1905–1984) in 1929 and had three daughters (Marjorie, Dorothy and Janet) and a son (Wendell Meredith Junior). Stanley Hall at UC Berkeley (now Stanley Biosciences and Bioengineering Facility) and Stanley Hall at Earlham College are named in his honor. His daughter, Marjorie, married Dr. Robert Albo, physician to the Golden State Warriors basketball team as well as the Oakland Raiders football team.