Memorial Resolution: Bruce A.D. Stocker, M.D

Bruce A.D. Stocker, M.D., Professor Emeritus Active, Microbiology and Immunology, died August 30, 2004 at the age of 87 in Palo Alto. Bruce spent the last 38 years of his life at Stanford. He joined the Department of Medical Microbiology in 1966 and served as acting chair of the department from 1976 to 1981. Stocker retired in 1987 at age 70 because of a mandatory retirement law in place at the time. Though he retired, he did not slow down. He continued his extraordinary research studies on Salmonella, and he published dozens more articles, some of which, appeared after his death. In 2003, when a reporter from The Chronicle of Higher Education asked when he would cease work, he replied, "Whenever I'm compelled to—either I'll drop dead or become incapacitated by old age."

A native of England, Stocker attended King's College at the University of London and then went on to study pathology in his medical studies at Westminster Hospital Medical School, part of the University of London, earning the equivalent of an American medical degree in 1940. Afterward, he joined the medical branch of the Royal Air Force, serving in India and Burma. Upon his return to England in 1947, Professor Stocker joined the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He initiated research in the new field of bacterial mutations and began his life-long study of Salmonella. His first publication on his research about the organism was in 1949. In 1951, he joined Joshua Lederberg and Norton Zinder at the University of Wisconsin. Together, they provided the first unequivocal demonstration that bacterial viruses could mediate transfer of linked genes between bacteria. Their paper describing this in 1953 is considered one of the classic papers in bacterial genetics and had implications for his future work, which Stocker pursued vigorously for many years. In 1953 he was appointed Director of the Guinness-Lister Microbiological Research Unit at the Lister Institute where he gathered a remarkable group of talented scientists who were trying to understand the genetics of pathogenic bacteria. Bruce joined our faculty in 1966, the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

At Stanford, Bruce and his students published a series of elegant reports describing how bacterial flagella work, how their expression is regulated, what their relationship is to virulence, and ultimately, how they can be used to construct living attenuated vaccines for the prevention of a variety of human and animal infections. The search for a way to immunize against Salmonella was the driving force of Stocker's research from the early 1980s until his death.

His approach to vaccine development was novel. He constructed bacteria mutants that required certain aromatic amino acids (Aro strains) that were unable to grow within the mammalian host. He reasoned that the bacteria would grow just enough to stimulate the immune system to produce protective antibodies but not enough to cause infection or disease. This tactic worked and, indeed, remains a cornerstone for most of the vaccines currently in clinical trials against typhoid fever and other enteric infections. Bruce and his co-workers and collaborators also had the vision to use the methods of genetic engineering to construct Aro vaccine strains of Salmonella, which carried the genes for a number of other bacterial pathogens and even for determinants of malignancy. These vaccine strains could not only provide immunity to Salmonella infection but could also induce antibodies against other bacterial pathogens or tumors. Throughout his long career, he maintained a deep commitment to understanding fundamental physiologic and genetic processes as they occur in bacteria, which enabled him to be so productive when he applied himself to practical matters.

Bruce was given the name Bruce Arnold Dunbar Stocker. He published for many years as BAD Stocker to the amusement of some of his colleagues. Bruce in his dry way would often acknowledge this unfortunate association at the beginning of his seminars but would add, "It is fortunate that my parents did not name me Malcolm!" Bruce was universally well liked and in his later years was a particular favorite of many of the students for his wit, his breadth of knowledge and his willingness to listen when the younger, "busier" faculty had no time, the students said, to do so. His colleagues viewed Bruce as a "scientist's scientist." Although Bruce was retired, his research always reflected the latest methods and hypotheses. He could explain some of the latest methods and use them in the laboratory, while younger colleagues floundered in a sea of new literature.

One of our colleagues, Professor Gary Schoolnik, has offered the following reflection to his students who had worked closely with Bruce at the end of his life. "Bruce was as pure a scientist as I have yet encountered. He pursued science without concern for personal fame or money. He was ruthlessly objective. He stayed with the same basic question for over half a century—taking it to deeper levels. …his values, which are unfortunately not so common today, even in academia, I believe, are the right values. Please also reflect on what it means to age as a scientist and, as Bruce demonstrated, the ability of scientific investigation to sustain intellectual growth and an active life even into the ninth decade."

His colleagues miss his presence at seminars and his never failing enthusiasm for science. We remember him in his 70s coming to work daily on his little Vespa motor scooter and our whispered fears for his safety. We miss his smile, which appeared regularly as if he always possessed some wonderful secret. One colleague, Toby Eisenstein, PhD, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Temple University School of Medicine, put it well when she wrote, "Bruce was a special person… His decency in the competitive environment of science was a lesson in how to be a gracious and thoughtful human being." Bruce mentored a distinguished cohort of scientists who worked in his laboratory and all remember him with gratitude and affection.

Bruce's beloved wife, Jane, died in 1996. He is survived by his two daughters, Kate O'Sullivan and Clare Stocker, and by four grandchildren.

Committee: Stanley Falkow Leon Rosenberg