Photo (2003) Courtesy of The Salk Institute

Remembering
Marguerite Vogt

On July 6th 2007, Marguerite Vogt, a remarkable woman of science, died at the age of 94. I was fortunate to be a colleague of Marguerite's early in my faculty career, and late in hers. This page is being developed to remember Marguerite's contributions as a scientist, and to honor her role as a mentor.

This is a work under construction. If you have photographs, reminiscences of Marguerite, thoughts and comments about her science, or corrections to make in this material, please email me at forsburg (at) U S C (dot) E D U. Credit and links will be provided.

My hope is for this to be a living and evolving memorial to a remarkable scientist who made significant contributions in numerous areas of research. This page is copyrighted and pictures and quotes are used by permission. Contact the author for further information.

Marguerite Maria Vogt was born in 1913, the second of two children. Her parents, Oskar Vogt and Cécile Vogt-Mugnier, were prominent neuroscientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm/Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Berlin. Oskar was a neuroanatomist, one of the neurologists who was summoned to Moscow to examine Lenin's brain in 1925 (1) . The Vogts also identified a disease, Vogt-Vogt Syndrome (1) . Their work was significant in the development of neuroscience and neurology (2). While Oskar received much notice, Cécile was considered brilliant in her own right (11). She was described as "a teacher in the art of living, of which she could give any a good advice"(11).

The Vogts directed their two daughters into science. It is said that they even chose their fields, pharmacology and genetics (13). Marguerite's older sister Marthe became a neuropharmacologist, with an MD from Berlin and an additional doctorate in Chemistry. Marthe was appalled at the rise of Hitler, and escaped to Britain in 1935 (3). She eventually became a fellow of the Royal Society and a Professor at Cambridge University.

Marguerite is reputed to have written her first paper at aged 14, on Drosophila (4). In 1937, she took her MD from the University of Berlin, like her sister. She was 23 years of age. She went to Paris to continue her work on Drosophila with Boris Ephrussi. However, in 1937, Oskar and Cécile were dismissed from their Institute in Berlin by the Nazis. Their politics was unwelcome and Oskar's link to Moscow were suspect. With the support of the Krupp family, industrialists who were wealthy patrons, the Vogts built a small private Institute for Brain research in the Black Forest near Neustadt (4),(6). Marguerite's sister had left, so Marguerite returned home to stay with her parents. She avoided men her own age, worried that anyone she met might be a Nazi (4). The Vogts weathered the war in their Institute, continuing their research, and offering shelter to fellow scientists. They were sufficiently remote that they survived, although their lives were perilous. Following the war, Marguerite was ready to leave the country, and after she moved to to the US in 1950, she refused to speak the German language again. (4).

Photo (1938) Courtesy of Marguerite Vogt estate

Marguerite worked on two major problems in Drosophila development: the structure and function of the ring gland, and early homeotic mutants such as proboscopedia that transform one body part into another.

Marguerite wrote numerous papers, but the combination of war time and publication in German made them inaccessible for many years (6). Much of that early work is now being rediscovered. Davy Jones, a Professor at the University of Kentucky has collected the citations to Marguerite's Drosophila papers, and is working on translating them from the German.

Davy never met Marguerite, and she passed away right as his major review on the ring gland was published , which cites her work prominently(5). Sadly, she did not live to see this rediscovery of her contributions 60 years later.

Marguerite left Germany and in 1950, joined the California Institute of Technology, taking with her only her Bechstein piano.(4, 6). She was working as a fellow with Max Delbrück, at first on E coli K12 F+ x F-crosses(12). Delbrück suggested that she switch projects, and join Renato Dulbecco, a young faculty member who was trying to develop a culture method for polio virus (7). Because of the danger of working with live virus, their study was relegated to the basement of a nearby hospital.(4,6, 7). They were able to establish a system not only to grow the virus, but to plaque purify it so that pure viral cultures could be identified and studied. This was a significant advance for virology, and interestingly, Marguerite's name was in the senior position on the publication (9). After their success, Dulbecco was promoted to associate professor, and given new lab space. (7). He continued to work with Marguerite, who was an expert at tissue culture, as they investigated other viruses. To investigate viral transformation of cells, they began to study the newly isolated polyoma virus. Marguerite's ability to culture all types of cells was critical to this study, and eventually they developed a protocol to transform hamster cells with polyoma virus (7).

Photo courtesy of The Salk institute

Dulbecco was wooed away from Caltech to the newly founded Salk Institute for Biological Studies in 1962, which was under construction. Marguerite moved with him. They continued their interest in how viruses transform cells to make them cancerous. Since there was only a limited amount of space until the iconic buildings of the Institute were complete, Dulbecco went to Glasgow for a year, while Marguerite stayed in La Jolla (7). At this time Lee Hartwell (Nobel laureate, and currently director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center) joined the lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

Newcomers to Dulbecco's lab learned their tissue culture methods and transformation protocols from Marguerite, whose technical expertise and rigorous recordkeeping were legend. But she was much more than a science advisor. Marguerite was known for her generosity to students and postdocs, and was always ready to help them financially or personally. In her house on a canyon edge in La Jolla, she hosted large parties during the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter) for the students and postdocs who had nowhere to go. It was not uncommon for 40-50 people to come with their families. For Easter, she arranged for the children to hunt for chocolate eggs in the canyon below.

From her parents, Marguerite had learned political engagement and social democrat values. She was active in protesting the Vietnam war (4). It was a turbulent time, even in normally tranquil San Diego. In 1970, Dulbecco decided to move his family to London as he was concerned about the political situation in the US (7). He would not return for 5 years.

Marguerite was finally appointed as a Research Professor at the Salk Institute in 1973. This was an independent faculty level position, which was essential for her to be able to apply for independent grant support and have her own lab space and staff. (Her title changed to Professor of Molecular & Cell Biology in 1990.) She drove to work daily in a noisy convertible sports car. Marguerite exercised vigorously, clambering down the cliff at North Torrey Pines to run along the beach, or swim in the ocean. She was always energetic, apparently fuelled by bitter black coffee and copious amounts of whipped cream. On Sundays, she hosted a music salon at her home in La Jolla, where enthusiastic friends gathered to play together before eating lunch. She was a talented pianist, and playing her piano was a great joy in her life.

Photo (2003) courtesy of The Salk institute

Cancer cells in vitro become immortalized in culture. Marguerite turned her attention to studying how this transition occurs, with a particular interest in Li-Fraumeni cells, which are derived from patients with a heritable cancer cyndrome. A number of investigators had become intrigued in how telomeres, the specialized structures at the ends of the chromosomes, might contribute to immortalization. So Marguerite added telomere biology to her repertoire. She was always eager to discuss her latest ideas with her colleagues, and she lured them into her office with cups of French roast coffee and slices of Sara Lee cake.

Even well into her 80s, Marguerite was steadily funded by the NIH to continue her work on cell immortalization, which matched her indefatigable work ethic. Susan Forsburg, now a professor at USC, joined the Salk as an assistant professor in 1993.

Marguerite continued her interest in all the latest papers.She religiously attended all seminars even peripherally associated with immortalization and telomeres, and it was a fixture of seminars to see her slip into a front row, adjusting her hearing aid. (She didn't like to wear it otherwise). She haunted the library and daily photocopied relevant papers which she devoured.

Once Marguerite stopped driving, she took the early morning bus up to N. Torrey Pines Road from her La Jolla home and jogged the few blocks to the Institute. She generally wore a long dark coat with a rucksack bouncing on her back, a mysterious figure in the dawn's light. Salk colleagues Bart Sefton or Walter Eckhart, or her long time UCSD friend and collaborator Martin Haas, typically drove her home. She was always lively intellectually; one of her postdocs during the 1990s was Russian, and Marguerite enjoyed rekindling her spoken Russian and re-reading Tolstoy in the original. (She spoke four languages, but considered French her mother tongue). Marguerite published her last scientific paper in 1998 (10). Though she continued with experiments for a while longer, eventually she retreated to her office where she read papers and monitored PubMed. It was not uncommon for her to copy papers of particular interest to her and give them to her faculty colleagues for their attention.

Marguerite had an influence on several Nobelists. In addition to her history working with Renato Dulbecco (who received the Prize in 1975) and Lee Hartwell (2001), cancer researcher David Baltimore (1975) , biochemist Paul Berg (1980) and developmental biologist Ed Lewis (1995) were other laureates who worked with Marguerite at some point in their careers as colleagues or sabbatical visitors. Lewis was an old friend who frequently came to play music with Marguerite in La Jolla.

As she became more frail, Marguerite's colleagues and friends increasingly helped to make sure she had transport, went to her doctors' appointments, and so on. After a nasty bout with pneumonia around 2000, Marguerite moved with her piano into an assisted living facility. Salk security officer Roger Greig drove her in to the Institute before 6am each day. They had a cheerful game of insults that they played with each other each morning, bantering back and forth in the car. Though hard of hearing and soft of voice, Marguerite had a sharp wit for the game. Martin Haas took her home each afternoon. When the department was renovated in 2004, Marguerite was given a large new office with a bright exposure to the Salk courtyard. That year, she was named a remarkable woman of California as part of an exhibition in Sacramento. Around 2006, Marguerite had become so frail that she moved into a nursing home in La Jolla, where she died in July 2007.

Photo courtesy of The Salk institute

Obituaries and articles about Marguerite Vogt all point out the significance of the work she did with Renato Dulbecco, and the numbers of postdocs and visitors to the Dulbecco lab whom she herself trained. Dulbecco received the Nobel Prize in 1975, but Marguerite never received any significant recognition. Yet Dulbecco and many colleagues grant her a substantial amount of credit for her contributions over the years. Quoted in the New York Times in 2001, Marguerite said, "I'm happy not to have been bothered....When you get too famous, you stop being able to work."(4).

However, in addition to the science all agree that a significant part of Marguerite's legacy was the people with whom she worked. Walter Eckhart joined the Salk Institute as a Dulbecco postdoc and eventually became chair of Marguerite's Department and the head of the Salk Institute's NIH funded Cancer Center.

Marguerite's colleagues at the Salk developed a lecture series in her honor. The first speaker in 2001 was David Baltimore, who had a long association with Marguerite and Renato Dulbecco working on transformation. A celebratory dinner was held with a number of old friends. And of course, music was a feature. In subsequent years, Elizabeth Blackburn (2002), Robert Weinberg (2003), Joan Steitz (2004), Rudolf Jaenisch (2005), and Thomas Curran (2006) were speakers for this series. The Institute also named a grove of eucalyptus trees for Marguerite. Located between the original buildings and the 1990s addition, the memorial grove has scattered tables and chairs, where the young scientists of the Institute like to sit and have lunch, or chat over coffee.

As discussed by Natalie Angier in the New York Times interview (2001) (4), Marguerite presents a complicated role model for women in science: her work was everything to her, and she sacrificed any personal life to science. She worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week; she never married, and never had any children. For her, it was an either/or decision: science, or not-science. It is also worth noting how different her experiences were in the 1950s as a woman scientist compared to Renato Dulbecco's as a man. Both were Europeans with MD degrees who came to the US around 1950 as research fellows. Yet while Dulbecco moved easily into the faculty track and had a family, Marguerite remained an unmarried research fellow who did not obtain an independent position for over 20 years. This was not uncommon for women scientists in that era. However, it is certain that the quality of the work that Marguerite performed helped blaze a trail for women who came later. She proved that women could be effective and talented independent investigators, just as dedicated and as accomplished as their male colleagues, and it is certain that this helped open the doors for future women faculty (and allowed them to have lives outside). Marguerite was always interested in seeing younger women succeed and be recognized, though she knew there was still work to be done.

Marguerite was impatient with discussing the past, and very seldom mentioned it. Did she regret sacrificing a personal life to science? She never said. She refused to let anyone write her biography during her life, deflecting them politely, because it would take too much time away from her work. This is a loss, because of the wide range of her experience, the colleagues she had, and the times in which she lived. She remains an unsung trailblazer.

All of us who knew her well as students, postdocs, and colleagues, became her family. On July 31, 2007, we joined in a memorial to Marguerite dubbed "A celebration of her wonderful life". Held at the Salk Institute, it featured a variety of speakers including of course, Renato Dulbecco, and Caltech President David Baltimore, Marguerite's dear friend and collaborator Martin Haas, and Salk Institute faculty colleagues Walter Eckhart, Inder Verma, Joanne Chory and Tony Hunter. There was music and laughter and joy at recalling the scientist all of us knew simply as "Marguerite". This page is intended to maintain a memory of her contributions as a scientist and as a mentor. She is much missed.

Thanks to
Lee Hartwell, Mike McKeown, Walter Eckhart, Ellen Daniell, David Gelfand, and Davy Jones for quotes, Davy Jones for the essay on the ring gland work, Inger Johnson for the list of Vogt lecturers, and Sarah Loffler & The Salk Institute, for pictures

More about the science:
The ring gland work by Davy Jones
Poliovirus, TBA
Viral transformation, by Walter Eckhart (in preparation)
Senescence and telomeres, TBA