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Historical Records of Australian Science Historical Records of Australian Science Society
The history of science, pure and applied, in Australia, New Zealand and the southwest Pacific
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

The contributions of Rupert Best to the modern concept of the nature of viruses

Andrew D. W. Geering https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5743-6804 A *
+ Author Affiliations
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A Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia.

* Correspondence to: a.geering@uq.edu.au

Historical Records of Australian Science 35(2) 198-206 https://doi.org/10.1071/HR23022
Published online: 28 March 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Academy of Science. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Rupert Jethro Best (1903–91), working alone at the Waite Agricultural Research Institute in Adelaide between 1934 and 1937, was among the first to purify tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and to propose that it was a complex macromolecule containing protein and another reactive group that was responsible for infectivity of the virus. However, his research was completely overshadowed by that of Wendell Stanley and the duo of Frederick Bawden and Norman (aka Bill) Pirie, working in the United States of America and Great Britain, respectively, to the point where Best is not even mentioned in modern histories of TMV. Many factors have contributed to this lack of recognition for Best. Professor James Prescott, a soil scientist and Best’s supervisor at the Waite Institute, failed to appreciate the significance of his research, leading to critical delays in publication that prevented him from claiming precedence for purifying TMV. When Best’s research was eventually published, it was in Australian journals that were not broadly distributed, resulting in minimal international exposure for his research. The plant virology community within which he worked in Australia was very small and entirely focused on plant disease control, and not concerned with fundamental questions about the composition of viruses. Communication with similarly interested scientists in the Northern Hemisphere was hindered by the great distances involved. In this paper, pioneering research done by Best on TMV is reviewed, and placed in context with that undertaken by Stanley and by Bawden and Pirie, who are best remembered for purifying TMV and characterising its physicochemical properties.

Keywords: agriculture, Frederick Bawden, history of virology, microbiology, plants, review, tobamovirus, viruses, Wendell Stanley.

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