The genius of Roger Stanier

The esteem for the scientific activity of Roger Stanier has been widespread. Apart from the oral and written history, an exploration of the archives of the Pasteur Institute in Paris and the personal Stanier papers in the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa fulfills this admiration. More recently, an institute has been formed in Canada that honours the name and memory of Roger Stanier with the consent of the Stanier family. English and French were the languages used by Dr Stanier in his work during his lifetime. The present commentary brings to the foreground the essence of his thinking, which is as relevant today as it was in his time. The condensed description serves as a commemoration so that it will not be forgotten that Roger Stanier was a Canadian as well as a world-renowned scientist. Roger Stanier (1916–1982) was a profound scholar whose studies spanned many years and concerned the basic tenets of evolution and adaptation. This distinguished Canadian-born (Victoria, British Columbia) scientist first embarked on the study of microorganisms many decades ago and spent his working life as a microbiologist in the United States and later in France. Early on, he spent a period of research on bacterial metabolism and physiology with modern pioneer microbiologist Marjorie Stephenson through a Guggenheim fellowship at Cambridge University (United Kingdom). Beginning in 1947, he devoted 24 years to the University of California at Berkeley (USA) where he attained the position of professor and chairman. During his years at Berkeley, Stanier made many fundamental contributions to our understanding of the microbial world. In 1957, with outstanding collaborators, he produced what was to become the leading textbook on microbiology during his time, entitled The Microbial World (traduit en francais et edite par Masson en 1966). This text was subsequently published in five editions over 30 years. In 1971, the Stanier family moved to France where Dr Stanier and his wife, Germaine, a French microbiologist and a distinguished scientist in her own right, together joined the Pasteur Institute. Roger Stanier assumed the position of ‘chef de service’ of the microbial physiology unit. Throughout his life, he maintained his Canadian citizenship. From his early days, taxonomy was a constant challenge to Stanier and his interest in the subject drew him into the Bergey's Manual Trust (USA) during the years of its gestation. The Bergey's Manual Trust developed into the scholarly authority for species recognition. Roger Stanier did much for its character and content, which gave him a wide view of microbiology and his interest evolved on a broad scale. His brilliant effort to bridge the gaps in our knowledge of complex evolutionary development helped characterize the microbial world. By depicting the course of evolution in terms of efficient endocytosis, Stanier directed attention to organellar structures and their eventual symbiotic relationships. He explained that the variety of cytoplasmic structures bearing colour pigments actually reflected ancient evolutionary diversity. Photopigment synthesis of free-living forms would have been preserved in the photosynthetic organelles. In time, nuclear organization prevented the evolutionary paths of cosymbionts from freely going their own way. His exceptional insight led him to appreciate the evolutionary significance of bacterial photosynthesis; it was the basis by which he traced the adaptation of organisms from anoxygenic (anaerobic) to oxygenic (aerobic) lifeforms. This produced a turning point in evolution when he realized that pigments in microorganisms played the important role of trapping energy from light. Selection in the emerging eukaryotic cell would have centred on improved efficacy of predation. He then fathomed that special relationships of microbial groups with unique physiological properties tend to occur to establish a shared opportunity for their survival. When Stanier turned his attention to the habitat of microorganisms to explain the selective pressures in a natural environment, he was able to foresee the connection between symbiotic relationships and microbial ecology. He was concerned that real changes would not be recognizable except under authentic environmental conditions that ensured the significant connections in the microenvironment. Stanier understood that the key to change was the availability of energy and diversity of mechanisms for its generation. Roger Stanier's intense interest in adaptation concerned multiple simultaneous adaptation in enzyme formation conceived as a systematic format at a basic biochemical level. The presence of a control mechanism was considered a stable character, which eventually showed that pathways could be regulated and that the control would in turn be conserved for this purpose in a particular biological group. He not only systematically clarified pathway metabolism, he also provided the basis on which the linkage to other biochemical pathways could be envisioned. It illustrated alternative pathways and detailed proof of microbial behaviour in a particular biochemical niche. In emphasizing evolution and adaptation, Stanier described the organic environment as consisting of both systematic and fluctuating occurrences, thus enabling organisms to move toward successive adaptation. He defined systematic variations as those that involved gradual unidirectional and fluctuating variations as short-term changes. Systematic events dealt with molding of the genotype, allowing for an organism to be selected to fit conditions of its environment in a geological time slot. Fluctuating events dealt with the change during a period of observation that was just sufficient to assess and pinpoint any pattern in those events that permitted possible selection of different genotypes. However, even with successive adaptation in nature, he recognized that any mutation could result in a disaster if it interfered with the competitive edge of an organism. Hence, an organism must retain that certain array of genes that gives it maximum fitness to ensure its environmental survival. Photopigments are of great biological significance, their importance being to permit the coexistence of different kinds of photosynthetic organisms in one habitat. Their ability to absorb light from certain regions of the solar spectrum benefited the coexisting symbionts. Thus, Stanier formulated the ingredients for analyzing symbiosis according to the degree of intimacy, the balance of advantage and the extent of dependence of each symbiont. The concurrent development in genetic structure led to a more consistent gene makeup. Roger Stanier's approach was highly influential because he thought that the difficult questions facing biology should also include microorganisms. By and large, Stanier brought microbiology into the mainstream of the biological sciences. He became renowned for his enormous studies on the fundamentals of microbiology and related biochemistry. His pioneering research concerned enzyme adaptation, the role of pigments, the assimilation of components with regard to chlorophyll, the oxidative processes of aromatic compounds, the comparative biochemistry and evolution of microorganisms and the establishment of blue-green algae as cyanobacteria. This interest in blue-green algae stemmed from his earlier passion for taxonomy and photosynthesis, and the need to determine the distinction between prokaryotes and higher microbial eukaryotes. In the novel investigation of the blue-green algae, Stanier and his wife, Germaine, stressed structure and function relationships, receiving overwhelming substantiation from increasing microscopy studies. Over his lifetime, Stanier received many awards and much international recognition including the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur (1977), Fellow of the Royal Society-London (1978) and also Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (1979). The year 2006 marks 90 years since Roger Stanier's birth and 2007 notes 25 years since his passing. The year 2007 also marks 50 years since the appearance of his influential text, The Microbial World, published in 1957, which resulted in five editions. What a compelling constellation of events in the life and work of Roger Stanier!