Howard L. Bachrach has been awarded more than two dozen honors, including the National Medal of Science in 1983, for his pioneering research in the molecular biology of viruses . After earning a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1942, he chose to specialize in organic chemistry and biochemistry and received his Ph.D. in these fields in 1949. Bachrach spent the war years doing research on the development of chemical explosives and then was sent by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to Denmark to learn more about foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). In 1953, Bachrach accepted an appointment as head of biochemical research at the USDA's Plum Island Animal Disease Center, an affiliation he maintained for the next four decades. During the 1970s, he developed a method for producing FMD vaccine by means of recombinant DNA (genetic engineering) techniques.
Bachrach was born on May 21, 1920, in Faribault, Minnesota. His parents were Elizabeth P. and Harry Bachrach, the owner of a clothing store for men and boys. Bachrach attended Faribault High School, from which he graduated as salutatorian in 1938. That fall, he entered the University of Minnesota, to major in chemistry. He graduated with a B.S. cum laude in that field four years later, having also been inducted into the Phi Lambda Upsilon national honorary fraternity in chemistry and the Gamma Alpha honorary fraternity in science. After graduation, Bachrach worked briefly for the Joseph E. Seagram Company before joining the war effort with the Office of Scientific Research and Development at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. His first work there involved research on chemical explosives. He was later assigned to a problem closer to his own field, being asked to study the chemical changes that take place as bread becomes stale. This research had been requested by the Quartermaster Corp of the U.S. Army in its attempt to find ways of preserving food for longer periods of time.
At war's end, Bachrach returned to the University of Minnesota, where he undertook a doctoral program in biochemistry. He completed that program in 1949 and received his Ph.D. His doctoral thesis involved a study of the virus that causes cholera in hogs , a disease that cost the swine industry millions of dollars in losses each year. Bachrach was able to demonstrate that hog cholera is produced not only by the virus itself, but also by a soluble protein that it produces.
Bachrach's background in viral immunology made him a logical candidate for important research then going on in connection with FMD. Prior to the 1930s, this disease had caused enormous losses in the U.S. livestock industry. It had been brought under control, however, and no cases had been reported in this country since 1929. During the 1940s, however, the disease had reappeared in Mexico and was spreading rapidly. The USDA became concerned about the possible spread of the disease into the United States and had begun a crash program to find ways of protecting the U.S. livestock industry against its reappearance here.
As part of that program, the USDA invited Bachrach to spend a year in Denmark studying at the USDA's European Commission on Foot-and-Mouth Disease laboratories. That experience provided him with invaluable knowledge about the FMD virus and about viral immunology in general.
Having completed his year in Denmark, Bachrach accepted an appointment at the University of California's Virus Laboratory in Berkeley, where he worked with Nobel Laureate biochemist Wendell Meredith Stanley. At Berkeley, Bachrach's major accomplishment was the first purification of the poliomyelitis virus. He was also able to obtain the first pictures of the virus using the university's electron microscope.
At the conclusion of his three years at the Virus Laboratory, in 1953, Bachrach was offered an appointment as head of the Chemical and Physical Investigations Section of the USDA's Plum Island Animal Disease Center in Greenport, New York. There he continued his efforts to develop a vaccine for FMD . Among the many discoveries he made during his four decades at Plum Island was that certain portions of the virus known as capsid proteins are able to produce an immune response in an organism even though the proteins themselves are not infectious. Working with scientists at the Genentech Corporation, he was able to incorporate these proteins into carrier molecules by means of gene splicing techniques. The resulting product was the first effective vaccine for use in humans or other animals produced by genetic engineering techniques.
The techniques developed by Bachrach hold promise for the development of other types of viral vaccines. One line of research, for example, involves the search for a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccine, one that involves the incorporation by gene splicing of a capsid protein from the virus into a carrier molecule.
In 1961 Bachrach became chief scientist at Plum Island, besides continuing in his post as the head of biochemical research. Twenty years later, Bachrach ended his most intensive duties at Plum Island but maintained his relationship with the research center. Although officially retired, he continues his research on viral diseases there. From 1981 on he has also been particularly active as a consultant to a number of organizations, including the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research, the Office of Technology Assessment, the National Research Council, the National Cancer Institute, and the Texas A&M University Institute of Biosciences and Technology.
Bachrach was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1983 for his work in molecular virology and his role in developing gene-splicing techniques . He has also been awarded a USDA Certificate of Merit (1960), a U.S. Presidential Citation (1965), the AAAS-Newcomb Cleveland Prize (1982), the USDA Distinguished Service Award (1982), and the Alexander von Humboldt Award (1983). He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1982 and to the USDA's Agricultural Research Service's Science Hall of Fame in 1987.
Bachrach was married to Shirley Faye Lichterman on June 13, 1943. They had two children, Eve Elizabeth, an attorney, and Harrison Jay, a physician. Bachrach lists his hobbies as golf, walking, gardening, photography, and his family.
Poppensiek, George C., letter to Norman Hackerman, January 10, 1989.
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