Arthur Galston

Arthur W. Galston (April 21, 1920 – June 15, 2008) was an American plant physiologist and bioethicist.

As a plant biologist, Galston studied plant hormones and the effects of light on plant development, particularly phototropism.

He identified riboflavin and other flavins as the photoreceptors for phototropism, the bending of plants toward light, challenging the prevailing view that carotenoids were responsible.

However, under the influence of botany professor Loren C. Petry he came to love botany, turned down an acceptance to Cornell Veterinary School, and earned a B.S. in botany from Cornell instead in 1940.

The University of Illinois offered Galston a teaching assistantship for graduate work, so he went to Champaign-Urbana to study botany and biochemistry.

He worked with plant physiologist Harry J. Fuller and botanist Oswald Tippo.

Fuller, although nominally his advisor, was sent to South America on war-related research and was unavailable much of the time.

Galston completed his M.Sc.

in 1942 and his Ph.D. in 1943.

It was a wartime requirement that the doctorate be completed in three years.

As a graduate student in 1943, Galston studied the use of 2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid (TIBA) to encourage the flowering of soybeans, and noted that high levels had a defoliant effect.

The British and U.S. military later developed TIBA into Agent Orange which was employed extensively in Malaya and Vietnam.

Galston became a bioethicist, and spoke out against such uses of science.

As chairman of Yale's botany department, Galston's ethical objections led President Nixon to end the use of Agent Orange.

Galston was the youngest child of Hyman and Freda Galston.

He grew up in a Jewish family in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, impoverished during the Great Depression.

Inspired by doctors like microbiologist Paul De Kruif but unable to afford medical school, Galston enrolled at Cornell's Agricultural College which was free for citizens of New York State.

He played saxophone in jazz and swing bands to earn living expenses.

Galston's original intention was to attend Cornell Veterinary School after his freshman year.

Galston's Ph.D. dissertation was titled Physiology of flowering, with especial reference to floral initiation in soybeans (1943).

His research focused on finding a chemical means to make soybeans flower and fruit earlier, so that they could mature before the end of the growing season.

He discovered that 2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid (TIBA) would speed up the flowering of soybeans.

He also noted that in higher concentrations it would defoliate the soybeans by causing them to release ethylene.

During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army captured most of the world's rubber plantations in British Malaya, causing a natural rubber shortage for the Allied armies.

Natural rubber came from the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis, a native of South America that was commercially grown in Southeast Asia.

The United States government established a research program to develop synthetic rubber, and also encouraged research into botanical alternatives.

Guayule, whose sap could be used to produce latex, was considered a possible substitute for rubber.

Galston was recommended to James F. Bonner by H. E. Carter, and spent a year working with Bonner at Caltech in Pasadena, California, to develop rubber tires from guayule.

By the end of 1944, the U.S. had achieved success with synthetic, petroleum-based rubber, and interest in guayule research lessened.

In July 1944, Galston was drafted into the U.S. Navy as an enlisted man.

He ultimately served as Natural Resources officer in Naval Military Government on Okinawa until his discharge in 1946.

After a year as an instructor at Yale University in 1946–1947, Galston returned to the California Institute of Technology to work with James Bonner as a senior research fellow.

While at Caltech, Galston made an important discovery.

He identified riboflavin as a photoreceptor involved in the bending of plants toward light.

This overturned a commonly held belief that carotene was the photoreceptor involved in phototropism.

In 1950 Galston accepted a Guggenheim Fellowship to spend a year working with Hugo Theorell at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

Upon his return to Caltech in 1951, Galston became tenured as an associate professor.

His supporters included Bonner and Frits Warmolt Went, both of whom were senior plant biology researchers at Caltech.

He co-taught classes in biology with George Beadle, who was then chairman of the biology department.

In 1955, Galston was offered a full professorship at Yale University by Oswald Tippo, chair of the botany department.