Dogged Don

Like the movements of the MinD protein, rapid move-1965 to 1996, the period covered by the book, Don Metcalf was Head of the Cancer Research Unit and ments are occurring in the intellectual landscape of cell Assistant Director of the Institute, which was headed biology, and cell polarity is no exception. This volume during this period by Gus Nossal. The focus of Metcalf's is a snapshot of the field as it currently stands, and it Unit on the developing area of hematopoiesis differed whets our appetites for the advances sure to come in from the overall focus of the Institute which was the the next five years. on his frustration with whole animal studies of thymus development, Don saw the potential of using in vitro approaches, and decided to establish these cultures in Hematopoiesis is the process by which millions of ma-his own laboratory. After working for a year with Bill ture blood cells, including erythrocytes, leukocytes, Robinson, his first Ph.D. student, Don left for a sabbati-platelets and immune effector cells, are produced per cal year in the U.S. At this stage, I arrived to commence hour by proliferation and differentiation of stem cells my Ph.D. project on the characterization of CSF. found in spleen, bone marrow, and fetal liver. It is in The chapter entitled " The Dubious Joys of Bioassays, " large part regulated by the action of the hematopoietic describes an activity I remember Don spending much cytokines, some of which are found in the circulation, of his time doing on return from his sabbatical—counting and most of which are also produced locally. A subset colonies. He would sit bolt-upright in a straight-backed of four of these cytokines regulate the production of chair (due to perennial back problems), smoking short granulocytes and macrophages. These four cytokines cigarillos. We had many conversations where his eyes are known as colony stimulating factors (CSFs) because did not leave the scope! He is justifiably proud of assum-of their ability to stimulate immature progenitor cells to ing the burden of colony counting over the decades. proliferate and form colonies of mature cells in culture. His fascination and dedication to thoroughly analyzing For the last 35 years, Don Metcalf and his Unit in the cultures, and to identifying the cell types in colonies Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research have stimulated by biologically active fractions, was critical made a major contribution …