John Abelson to Receive WSU’s Top Alumnus Award

PULLMAN, Wash. — Molecular biologist John N. Abelson will be honored this month as the 34^th recipient of the Washington State University Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award.

A 1960 WSU physics graduate, Abelson will be presented the award, the highest honor granted to WSU alumni, during the Oct. 22 regents’ meeting in Lighty Student Services Building, Room 405, on the Pullman campus.  The 9 a.m. award presentation is open to the public.

Abelson is a pioneer in determining how the information in DNA (deoxyribose nucleic acid) is translated into the language of proteins and is co-founder of the company that developed one of the first three drugs that helped slash the death rate among AIDS patients in the mid-1990s.

After graduating from WSU, Abelson earned a doctorate in biophysics at Johns Hopkins University in 1965.  He completed postdoctoral studies in biochemistry at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge, England, prior to accepting his first faculty post at the University of California, San Diego, in 1968.  He joined the faculty at the California Institute of Technology in 1982, where he chaired the Division of Biology and became the George Beadle Professor of Biology in 1991.  He retired in 2002 and now lives in San Francisco.

In 1978, he and several colleagues founded the non-profit research organization Agouron Institute. Six years later, they entered the business world by creating Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc., a small San Diego firm that used the new idea of rational drug design to develop Viracept, the leading drug used for controlling HIV infections.  The company successfully brought the drug to market and also developed cancer and common cold drugs.  The company was later sold to Warner Lambert.

Abelson was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1985.  He received the 1993 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the College of Sciences and the WSU Alumni Achievement Award in 1995.  He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985 and to the American Philosophical Society in 2001.  He delivered the Sinsheimer Distinguished Lecture in Biology at University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2001.

Abelson is now the Beadle emeritus professor at Caltech and president of the Agouron Institute, now an endowed charitable foundation.

Abelson will deliver a public address, “An Academic’s Adventure in Biotechnology,” at 12:10 p.m. Oct. 22 in WSU’s Abelson Hall, Room 201.  That same afternoon, he will meet with WSU biotechnology and postdoctoral science students.

Philip Abelson, John Abelson’s uncle, was a longtime editor of Science Magazine and recipient of the President’s National Medal of Science. John Abelson’s aunt, Neva Martin Abelson, was co-developer of the Rh-factor blood test. Philip and Neva Martin Abelson were the first and 23^rd recipients of the distinguished alumni award, respectively.  Abelson Hall is named for them.

John Abelson’s grandparents homesteaded in Pullman and built their first home where Fulmer Hall now stands. His father, Harold, and brother, LeRoy, both civil engineers, are also WSU graduates. His sister Dorothy spent one year at WSU, graduating later from the university. She married Larry Wibbenmeyer and lives in Eugene, Ore., where she works as a therapist

In 2000, John and his wife, geneticist Christine Guthrie, American Cancer Society professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and NAS member, created the Abelson Family Lecture at WSU in honor of his extended family.  In the late 1990s, Abelson helped the WSU College of Sciences develop the reorganization plans that created the Schools of Molecular Biosciences and Biological Sciences.

Established in 1962, the Regents’ Distinguished Alumnus Award is for alumni who have made a distinguished contribution to society or who, through personal achievement, shall have brought distinction to WSU.

Previous winners in addition to the Abelsons, include broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, nationally known sociologists William Julius Wilson and James E. Blackwell, co-founder of Microsoft Paul Allen and Native American poet, author and film director Sherman Alexie. Visit the Web site http://www.regents.wsu.edu/distinguished-alumni/ for more information on all of the recipients.