314 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS Another major contribution to cutaneous lipid biochemistry which Wheatley made at Chicago was the demonstration by radioisotope tracer experiments in isolated perfused dog skin that the biosynthesis of branched chain fatty acids and those with odd numbers of carbon atoms begins on the skeletons of appropriate amino acid starting units. Throughout the time he spent at Chicago, Dr. Wheatley also kept him- self busy designing, improving and building one gas chromatography ma- chine after another with technical assistance from a rather colorful group of' devoted chemistry student technicians who had added skills not only in electronics but also in growing beards and other aspects of collegiate beatnik behavior. Wheatley's inspiration and efficient and proper English supervision of this crew was always a ready source of amusement and ad- miration for the casual observer. Aside from his scientific enthusiasms, Dr. Wheatley is characterized by his extraordinary devotion to his wife and their three fine sons. Among his diversions are gardening and the raising of large numbers of Siamese cats. Unfortunately for Chicago, in 1960 Dr. Wheatley was lured away to the Department of Dermatology of Stanford University, in part, at least, by the sunny climate of California which, no doubt, provided more favorable conditions for gardening.and cats. Incidentally dermatologic science did not suffer too badly from the move for Wheatley's researches profitably branched out into the fields of cutaneous nucleic acid metabolism and the keratinization process. At this point I am pleased to point out that the balance between Chicago and California in regard to scientists who are both gardeners and Siamese cat fanciers was not long disturbed by Wheatley's departure, for this tra- dition is now ably being carried on at the University of Chicago by a dis- tinguished scientist lured away from California, namely our Nobel prize- winning president, Dr. George W. Beadle. On this peaceful note I will finally close by extending my heartiest congratulations to both the deservipg recipient and the discerning donors of the current Special Award.

ACCEPTANCE OF THE SPECIAL AWARD By Victor R. Wheatley, Ph.D. I AM CONSCIOUS of the honor paid to me by this SOCIETY in selecting me as recipient of this year's Special Award. I am still a little bewildered and the whole proceedings have an air of unreality but if I am dreaming, I hope that I do not wake up. I am grateful to Dr. Allan Lorincz for acting, so ably, as my eulogist. His remarks about me have been most flattering, though I am not sure that they are entirely true. I became interested in the experimental investigation of the skin just fourteen years ago when I accepted an appointment at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London as skin biochemist. This appointment I accepted with some reluctance since, at that time, I knew little about the skin and failed to see what an interesting field of study it could provide. The fact that I am still working in this field is evidence enough of the fascination of this complex organ. Most of my work in this field has been concerned with the lipids of the skin. Our first publication on this subject appeared about twelve years ago in, perhaps significantly, an American journal. This was greeted by a number of requests for reprints, a large proportion of which came from the cosmetic houses of this country. At first we were a little surprised since our primary interest was in dermatology but the sciences of dermatology and of cosmetology overlap so much that it is almost impossible to do basic research on the skin whi.ch does not make contributions to both fields of study. Through the ensuing years the interest of the cosmetic chemists in our investigations grew and in 1956 I wrote reviews of our work for two of the leading cosmetic journals. As I said before, my major field of interest was the lipids of the skin, more specifically the chemical nature and function of sebum. This proved to be an exceedingly complex substance and many years had to be spent in the purely chemical investigation of its composition and in the develop- ment of methods for the analysis of this material. One result of these early investigations was the demonstration of squalene as a normal com- ponent of sebum. This observation had far reaching consequences since it reawakened interest in the biological function of squalene which led di- rectly to the establishment of its role as an intermediate in the biosynthesis of cholesterol. 315