12 Facts About Maclyn McCarty

Maclyn McCarty was the second of four sons; his father was a branch manager for the Studebaker Corporation while it was still a firm for horse-drawn carriages.

MacLeod, over a number of years of research, had resolved several thorny technical issues, so that by the time Maclyn McCarty arrived at the Rockefeller University, Avery's team had paved the way for Maclyn McCarty.

Maclyn McCarty's work, combined with hers, made it clear that conditions affecting the joints and the heart resulted from infections several weeks earlier.

Maclyn McCarty attacked this problem by studying both the biology and Rockefeller Hospital patients with acute rheumatic fever.

Together with his students and collaborators, over the next 20 years, Maclyn McCarty's work changed the understanding of the organism from a gram-positive streptococcus with a particular serological characteristic to one of the best characterized bacterial species.

Maclyn McCarty's work led to the isolation of the streptococcal cell wall as a structural entity suitable for anatomic inspection by electronmicroscopy.

In parallel, Maclyn McCarty studied patients with rheumatic fever admitted to the Rockefeller Hospital as well as valuable specimen collections from military outbreaks of the disease during World War II.

Maclyn McCarty found that group A streptococci secreted unusually high amounts of DNase, and established a test for the detection of antibodies produced in response to this antigen.

Maclyn McCarty purified human C-reactive protein through crystallization, produced a highly specific antiserum, and, using this much simpler and more sensitive test, found that C-reactive protein levels responded more rapidly and reliably than other inflammatory markers and could serve as the most accurate indicator of rheumatic inflammatory activity.

Maclyn McCarty served for 14 years as the physician-in-chief of the Rockefeller University Hospital, and as a trusted adviser and the vice president of the Rockefeller University.

Maclyn McCarty was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

Maclyn McCarty loved to wander the streets and the museums of the great cities of the world, particularly, Paris, New York, and London, and frequently visited overseas following his retirement.