VICTOR R. WHEATLEY, PI-I.D. A Eulogy by ALLAN L. LORNCZ, M.D. IT HAS BEES CLAIMED that the relation between chemists and derma- tologists in the arena of cosmetics is an uneasy one, aggravated more often than eased when there is direct contact between the two. As a dermatolo- gist hopelessly outnumbered by this overwhelming body of cosmetic chem- ists, I feel goaded to assume the customary physician's stance of infallibility and tell you all a thing or two--this time not about the abuse of drugs and hormones in cosmetics but about your very good sense in honoring by means of your Special Award and its accompanying palpable prize the magnificent scientific contributions of Dr. Victor R. Wheatley to the field of cutaneous lipid biochemistry. Dr. Wheaticy began his scientific career as a technician in the biochemical laboratories of the Westminster Hospital Medical School in England where, after a few years, he was put in charge of all routine clinical biochemical work and technical staff teaching. During the war he narrowly escaped with his life when his hospital was struck by bombs. After becoming qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Medical Laboratory Technology, he served as a part-time lecturer in Chemical Pathology for that Institute and continued his studies in chemistry to obtain the B.Sc. degree from London University. During this period he also developed a number of im- proved clinical laboratory methods. In 1948 he first started working with skin as a hall-time research bio- chemist associated with the cutaneous biochemistry research program of Dr. R. M. B. MacKenna and Prof. A. Wormall at the Medical College of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. By 1950 he completed his thesis, an exhaus- tive study on the composition of sebum, and obtained a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from London University. His first major dermatologic discovery by that time was the definite demonstration of the presence of large amounts of squalene in human skin surface lipids. This finding of squalene on the human skin surface stimulated Dr. Stephen Rothman at the University of Chicago to speculate about its possible role in cholesterol synthesis. Dr. Rothman's discussions on this subject with the biochemist, Dr. K. Bloch, helped to spark the classic work which the latter and his associates at Chicago subsequently carried out in proving that squalene is a key intermediate in the biosynthesis of cholesterol. 312

THE EIGHTH SPECIAL AWARD 313 Soon after the brilliant development in the early 1950's by Drs. A. J. P. Martin and A. T. James of gas-liquid partition chromatography, Wheatley joined James in applying this powerful technique to the detailed analysis of the fatty acids of cutaneous surface lipids. They discovered the presence of small amounts of heretofore not detected singly and more highly branched chain fatty acids in human skin surface fat. They also noted the very remarkable diversity and specificity of species variation in com- position of skin surface lipids so that species identification could almost be obtained on the basis of the gas chromatograms of just the fatty acid com- ponents of such lipids. It was at this stage in Dr. Wheatley's career that, in 1957, I had the good fortune of becoming acquainted with him when he came to the United States from his native city of London, England, to continue his research work on cutaneous lipids in Dr. Stephen Rothman's dermatology research labora- tories at the University of Chicago. In the little over two years that Dr. Wheatley spent in these laboratories at Chicago, I came to know him not only as a well-informed basic scientist and skillful, ingenious and careful laboratory investigator, but also as a likeable fellow with a sharp mind and the kind of sensitive, considerate and well-disciplined personality which typifies the very model of an Englishman. While at Chicago, Dr. Wheatley collaborated with Dr. R. P. Reinertson in analyzing the intraepidermal lipids of human skin. They discovered the presence of large amounts of 7-dehydrocholesterol, a precursor of vitamin D, in such lipids, despite the virtual absence of this substance in skin surface lipids. They thereby solved the long-standing biological puzzle of the site where vitamin D is synthesized in human skin after appropriate ultraviolet irradiation. After hearing of this important finding, I suggested to Dr. Wheatley, in one of our many pleasant and stimulating informal discussion sessions, that perhaps this compound is present in such large amounts in the epidermis because it may serve as an intermediate in epidermal cholesterol synthesis as well as a precursor of vitamin D. On the basis of this sugges- tion and our group's generally held assumption that the intermediary metabolism of cholesterol may be blocheroically dissected and partially blocked at various stages in the skins of various animal species so that substances such as squalene, lanosterol and lathosterol accumulate, Dr. Wheatley by means of an inspired bit of paper chemistry worked out an alternative pathway to the generally accepted one proposed by Popjak for the final stages of cutaneous cholesterol biosynthesis. He first recorded this scheme in a paper read before a meeting of your SOCIETY in this city in October, 1958. Since then Kandutsch and associates as well as others have definitely proved that this suggested pathway actually operates in the skin whereas in most other tissues the Popjak pathway is generally the pre- dominant one.