Winthrop John Van Leuven Osterhout (August 2, 1871 – April 9, 1964) was an American

botanist Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...

. Osterhout was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, the son of Reverend John Van Leuven Osterhout, a Baptist minister, and Annie Loranthe Beman. His mother and infant sister died in 1873, leaving his father to raise him alone. However, this proved difficult and so Winthrop was given to his grandmother in Baltimore to raise until the age of eight. His father having remarried, he returned to live with John and his wife in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

. In 1889 he entered

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

where he developed an interest in botany. He joined the staff of Brown University in 1893, where he taught botany for two years and graduated with an M.A. in 1894. He studied at

Bonn, Germany The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

for a year, then returned home in 1896 and moved to California. In 1899 he received a Ph.D. at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

with a dissertation on '' Rhabdonia'', whereupon he married his first wife, Anna Maria Landstrom. The couple had two daughters: Anna Maria and Olga. At the University of California, he was promoted to assistant professor from 1901 to 1908 then associate professor of botany 1908–1909. In 1909, he moved to

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

as an assistant professor of botany, taking a step down in rank but being closer to the important

Marine Biological Laboratory The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biological and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution that was independent ...

Woods Hole Woods Hole is a census-designated place in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The population was 781 at ...

. He rose to the rank of professor at Harvard in 1913 at the age of 42. Spending every summer at the laboratory in Woods Hole, he was named a trustee in 1919. He was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

in 1919. From 1919 until 1964, he was the co-editor of the ''

Journal of General Physiology ''Journal of General Physiology'' is a Peer review, peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Rockefeller University Press. The journal covers biology, biological, chemical substance, chemical, or Physics, physical mechanisms of broad physiolog ...

'', along with founder

Jacques Loeb Jacques Loeb (; ; April 7, 1859 – February 11, 1924) was a German-born American physiologist and biologist. Biography Jacques Loeb, firstborn son of a Jewish family from the German Eifel region, was educated at the universities of Berlin, Munic ...

. His work appeared with the first issue, and a total of 120 of his articles were published by the journal, up until 1956. The death of Loeb in 1924 left a vacancy at the Rockefeller Institute, and Osterhout joined the staff in 1926. There he performed much productive research. During the 1930s, he was the first to suggest the

active transport In cellular biology, ''active transport'' is the movement of molecules or ions across a cell membrane from a region of lower concentration to a region of higher concentration—against the concentration gradient. Active transport requires cellul ...

mechanism of a carrier molecule for moving solutes across a cell membrane. In 1933 he married a second time, to his colleague, fellow plant physiologist Marian Irwin, the third daughter of

Robert Walker Irwin Robert Walker Irwin (January 4, 1844 – January 5, 1925) was an American businessman and the Kingdom of Hawaii's Minister to Japan. Irwin's most significant accomplishment as Hawaii's top representative to Japan was the 1886 immigration treaty ...

and his Japanese wife, Iki.Robert Walker Irwin
Photoguide.jp Articles By 1951, Osterhout's health began to fail. He died at St. Barnabas Hospital at the age of 92, after a long bout of illness.

Awards and honors

Osterhout received the following honors: * Honorary doctorate from Harvard University in 1925 * Honorary doctorate from Brown University in 1926 * Member Emeritus, Rockefeller Institute in 1939

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Osterhout, Winthrop John Van Leuven 1871 births 1964 deaths People from Brooklyn American botanists Brown University alumni Brown University faculty University of California alumni University of California faculty Harvard University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Scientists from New York (state)