Jordi Folch Pi
Encyclopedia
Jordi Folch Pi was a Catalan
biochemist at Harvard University
(McLean Hospital
) who is recognized universally as one of the founders of the field of structural chemistry of complex lipids and as a leader in the development of Neurochemistry
as a distinct discipline within the Neurosciences. He was born in Barcelona, Spain, on March 25, 1911, and died in Boston, Massachusetts on October 3, 1979, at 69 years of age.
The father (Rafel Folch) was a lawyer and a Catalan poet, the mother (Maria Pi) a teacher. As his mother liked and spoke French, Jordi Folch went to high school at the Lycée Français of Barcelona, from which he graduated in 1927. He then undertook Medicine studies and received an M.D. degree from the University of Barcelona Medical school in 1932.
The clinical training at the university was first rate and included a period as an intern in the surgical clinic of Dr. Antoni Trias and as the sole physician in Almedret, a small Catalan village of 800 people. By contrast, the basic sciences consisted mainly of lectures with little opportunity for hands-on laboratory experience. Folch was fortunate to have the opportunity to study at the Institute of Physiology in Barcelona, which was founded by his cousin August Pi Sunyer and Jesus Maria Bellido and was dedicated to carrying out basic research using contemporary methods and ideas. Folch worked as an assistant to another cousin Cesar Pi Sunyer and by the time he received his M.D. degree, they had jointly published four papers on glycogen synthesis in three different languages (German, French, and Spanish). Folch also studied blood glucose and lactic acid metabolism under the direction of the man he considered his scientific mentor, Professor Rosend Carrasco Formiguera. He was the person who particularly encouraged the young Folch in his research. Folch’s experiences at the Institute of Physiology intensified his interest in physiology and in clinical questions, particularly as they related to metabolic problems. Thanks to Carrasco’s contacts, Francisco Duran Reynals, a biochemist at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, became interested in Folch and arranged for him to come to that institution as a volunteer.
In 1936, just before the Spanish Civil War
broke out, he was accepted as a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, and he took the post. At the insistence of his family (who had fought for the defeated Republican side—his brother Albert and sister Nuria had to exile into Mexico and his other brother Frederic spent a few months in prison after returning from exile in France), he decided to stay in the United States after the Civil War ended.
Jordi Folch Pi arrived at the Rockefeller in 1936 as a volunteer assistant. The following year he obtained a formal position as an assistant and later as an associate on the scientific staff of the Hospital of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in Donald Van Slyke
’s department. Folch’s first assignment at the Rockefeller Institute was a project with Dr. Irvine Page on pituitary hormone disturbances. Folch's role was to analyze plasma lipids in these disorders. He soon realized that the commonly used extraction of lipids with petroleum ether had problems in that the extraction was not quantitative and the extract contained non-lipid contaminants. He then devised a procedure that involved precipitation of lipids and proteins with colloidal iron and removal of most of the non-lipid components with water, which solved the contamination problem.
During these first investigations he co-signed a paper with Van Slyke on an improved manometric method for carbon analysis. Using this newly developed method, he characterized the isolated "cephalin" fraction from brain tissue that after Johannes Thudichum
(the nineteenth-century founder of the field of structural neurochemistry) was considered as pure phosphatidyl ethanolamine. Folch showed that the amount of carbon and of amines were not consistent with Thudichum's formula. This research led to Folch's first publication on brain lipids in 1941 and was followed over a period of several years by a series of famous papers showing that cephalin was not a single lipid but rather a mixture of three lipids (phosphatidyl ethanolamine, phosphatidyl serine, and inositol
). Folch was the first to have elucidated the structure of phosphatidyl serine. Furthermore, he isolated subsequently mono-, di- and triphosphoinositides.
In 1944, with only 33 years of age, Folch was appointed director of the new Biological Research Laboratory at the McLean Hospital
(a division of Massachusetts General Hospital
) and assistant professor of biological chemistry at Harvard Medical School
to develop a program in Neuroscience
. His fundamental philosophy was that, to understand the structural chemistry of the brain, it was necessary to identify all brain components. Thus, he developed mild procedures for quantitative extraction of brain lipids leading to the classic method using a chloroform-methanol mixture and a phase partition with water which resulted in quantitative extraction of tissue lipids and removal of water-soluble contaminants. This method became one of the most highly cited papers of the 1950s. The technique he developed for purifying the brain lipids is still referred to as "Folching" and is one of the most cited papers in the history of biochemistry. More modernly, citations have diminished likely due to the incorporation of the technique into the common English vocabulary as a verb. "To Folch the tissue" means to extract the tissue as described in J. Folch, M. Lees, and G. H. Sloane Stanley, "A simple method for the isolation and purification of total lipids from animal tissues, J. Biol. Chem. 226, 497-509 (1957)).
Folch successfully used his method to examine changes in brain lipids and proteins during development or diseases. His method led to the identification of myelin proteolipid (defined as a new type of lipoproteins) in white matter and water-soluble glycolipids (named strandin at that time but now recognized as gangliosides) in gray matter
. Until the end of his career, the characterization of proteolipids was a major focus of Folch's work and interest. The Folch's isolation procedure provided the basis for later studies of acylated proteins and gangliosides.
Despite a short bibliography, Folch can be considered as one of the founders of the chemistry of complex lipids and correlatively as a leader in the development of neurochemistry. He was one of the founders of the American Society for Neurochemistry
and of the International Society for Neurochemistry
. In 1956, Folch became the first Professor of Neurochemistry at Harvard Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1978, he was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences
. He was also honorary professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Barcelona, and was awarded honorary degrees by the University of Montpellier, France, and by the University of Chile, Santiago. After his retirement in 1977, he was Professor of Neurochemistry Emeritus and continued to be active as honorary biochemist at McLean Hospital until his death.
His last name is often seen hyphenated ("Folch-Pi"). In the Spanish tradition of providing two identifiers, he often signed with both his paternal and his maternal last names. When he moved to America and married Willa, he decided to hyphenate his paternal and maternal last names, so that his children would bear his full family heritage: "Folch-Pi". His last names are often mispronounced "Foltsch Pie" but the correct Catalan pronunciation is "Folk Pea".
Jordi Folch married a young student Willa Babcock in 1945 who was also a scholar in her own right (in the field of Romance languages). Willa gave him three children (Raphael, Diana, and Frederic). Later, Willa became academic dean of Tufts University in Medford, Mass. Willa and Raphael have died in recent years.
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
biochemist at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
(McLean Hospital
McLean Hospital
McLean Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and ground-breaking neuroscience research...
) who is recognized universally as one of the founders of the field of structural chemistry of complex lipids and as a leader in the development of Neurochemistry
Neurochemistry
Neurochemistry is the specific study of neurochemicals, which include neurotransmitters and other molecules such as neuro-active drugs that influence neuron function. This principle closely examines the manner in which these neurochemicals influence the network of neural operation...
as a distinct discipline within the Neurosciences. He was born in Barcelona, Spain, on March 25, 1911, and died in Boston, Massachusetts on October 3, 1979, at 69 years of age.
The father (Rafel Folch) was a lawyer and a Catalan poet, the mother (Maria Pi) a teacher. As his mother liked and spoke French, Jordi Folch went to high school at the Lycée Français of Barcelona, from which he graduated in 1927. He then undertook Medicine studies and received an M.D. degree from the University of Barcelona Medical school in 1932.
The clinical training at the university was first rate and included a period as an intern in the surgical clinic of Dr. Antoni Trias and as the sole physician in Almedret, a small Catalan village of 800 people. By contrast, the basic sciences consisted mainly of lectures with little opportunity for hands-on laboratory experience. Folch was fortunate to have the opportunity to study at the Institute of Physiology in Barcelona, which was founded by his cousin August Pi Sunyer and Jesus Maria Bellido and was dedicated to carrying out basic research using contemporary methods and ideas. Folch worked as an assistant to another cousin Cesar Pi Sunyer and by the time he received his M.D. degree, they had jointly published four papers on glycogen synthesis in three different languages (German, French, and Spanish). Folch also studied blood glucose and lactic acid metabolism under the direction of the man he considered his scientific mentor, Professor Rosend Carrasco Formiguera. He was the person who particularly encouraged the young Folch in his research. Folch’s experiences at the Institute of Physiology intensified his interest in physiology and in clinical questions, particularly as they related to metabolic problems. Thanks to Carrasco’s contacts, Francisco Duran Reynals, a biochemist at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, became interested in Folch and arranged for him to come to that institution as a volunteer.
In 1936, just before the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
broke out, he was accepted as a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute in New York, and he took the post. At the insistence of his family (who had fought for the defeated Republican side—his brother Albert and sister Nuria had to exile into Mexico and his other brother Frederic spent a few months in prison after returning from exile in France), he decided to stay in the United States after the Civil War ended.
Jordi Folch Pi arrived at the Rockefeller in 1936 as a volunteer assistant. The following year he obtained a formal position as an assistant and later as an associate on the scientific staff of the Hospital of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in Donald Van Slyke
Donald Van Slyke
Donald Dexter Van Slyke was a renowned Dutch American biochemist. His achievements included the publication of 317 journal articles and 5 books, as well as numerous awards, among them the National Medal of Science and the first AMA Scientific Achievement Award.-Early days and education:Van Slyke...
’s department. Folch’s first assignment at the Rockefeller Institute was a project with Dr. Irvine Page on pituitary hormone disturbances. Folch's role was to analyze plasma lipids in these disorders. He soon realized that the commonly used extraction of lipids with petroleum ether had problems in that the extraction was not quantitative and the extract contained non-lipid contaminants. He then devised a procedure that involved precipitation of lipids and proteins with colloidal iron and removal of most of the non-lipid components with water, which solved the contamination problem.
During these first investigations he co-signed a paper with Van Slyke on an improved manometric method for carbon analysis. Using this newly developed method, he characterized the isolated "cephalin" fraction from brain tissue that after Johannes Thudichum
Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum
Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Thudichum was a German physician and biochemist who was a native of Büdingen. He studied medicine in Giessen, where he also worked in the laboratory of chemist Justus von Liebig...
(the nineteenth-century founder of the field of structural neurochemistry) was considered as pure phosphatidyl ethanolamine. Folch showed that the amount of carbon and of amines were not consistent with Thudichum's formula. This research led to Folch's first publication on brain lipids in 1941 and was followed over a period of several years by a series of famous papers showing that cephalin was not a single lipid but rather a mixture of three lipids (phosphatidyl ethanolamine, phosphatidyl serine, and inositol
Inositol
Inositol or cyclohexane-1,2,3,4,5,6-hexol is a chemical compound with formula 6126 or 6, a sixfold alcohol of cyclohexane. It exists in nine possible stereoisomers, of which the most prominent form, widely occurring in nature, is cis-1,2,3,5-trans-4,6-cyclohexanehexol, or myo-inositol...
). Folch was the first to have elucidated the structure of phosphatidyl serine. Furthermore, he isolated subsequently mono-, di- and triphosphoinositides.
In 1944, with only 33 years of age, Folch was appointed director of the new Biological Research Laboratory at the McLean Hospital
McLean Hospital
McLean Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.It is noted for its clinical staff expertise and ground-breaking neuroscience research...
(a division of Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...
) and assistant professor of biological chemistry at Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School
Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....
to develop a program in Neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
. His fundamental philosophy was that, to understand the structural chemistry of the brain, it was necessary to identify all brain components. Thus, he developed mild procedures for quantitative extraction of brain lipids leading to the classic method using a chloroform-methanol mixture and a phase partition with water which resulted in quantitative extraction of tissue lipids and removal of water-soluble contaminants. This method became one of the most highly cited papers of the 1950s. The technique he developed for purifying the brain lipids is still referred to as "Folching" and is one of the most cited papers in the history of biochemistry. More modernly, citations have diminished likely due to the incorporation of the technique into the common English vocabulary as a verb. "To Folch the tissue" means to extract the tissue as described in J. Folch, M. Lees, and G. H. Sloane Stanley, "A simple method for the isolation and purification of total lipids from animal tissues, J. Biol. Chem. 226, 497-509 (1957)).
Folch successfully used his method to examine changes in brain lipids and proteins during development or diseases. His method led to the identification of myelin proteolipid (defined as a new type of lipoproteins) in white matter and water-soluble glycolipids (named strandin at that time but now recognized as gangliosides) in gray matter
Gray Matter
"Gray Matter" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the October 1973 issue of Cavalier magazine, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift. It is set in the same area as King's novel Dreamcatcher.-Setting:...
. Until the end of his career, the characterization of proteolipids was a major focus of Folch's work and interest. The Folch's isolation procedure provided the basis for later studies of acylated proteins and gangliosides.
Despite a short bibliography, Folch can be considered as one of the founders of the chemistry of complex lipids and correlatively as a leader in the development of neurochemistry. He was one of the founders of the American Society for Neurochemistry
American Society for Neurochemistry
The American Society for Neurochemistry is a professional society for neurochemists and neuroscientists from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean, whose research concerns the role and interactions of small molecules in the development, growth, function, and pathology of the nervous...
and of the International Society for Neurochemistry
International Society for Neurochemistry
The International Society for Neurochemistry is a professional society for neurochemists and neuroscientists throughout the world.-History:...
. In 1956, Folch became the first Professor of Neurochemistry at Harvard Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1978, he was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
. He was also honorary professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Barcelona, and was awarded honorary degrees by the University of Montpellier, France, and by the University of Chile, Santiago. After his retirement in 1977, he was Professor of Neurochemistry Emeritus and continued to be active as honorary biochemist at McLean Hospital until his death.
His last name is often seen hyphenated ("Folch-Pi"). In the Spanish tradition of providing two identifiers, he often signed with both his paternal and his maternal last names. When he moved to America and married Willa, he decided to hyphenate his paternal and maternal last names, so that his children would bear his full family heritage: "Folch-Pi". His last names are often mispronounced "Foltsch Pie" but the correct Catalan pronunciation is "Folk Pea".
Jordi Folch married a young student Willa Babcock in 1945 who was also a scholar in her own right (in the field of Romance languages). Willa gave him three children (Raphael, Diana, and Frederic). Later, Willa became academic dean of Tufts University in Medford, Mass. Willa and Raphael have died in recent years.
Awards and Honors
- Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1956).
- Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences (1978).
- Honorary professorship by the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Barcelona (Spain).
- Honorary degree by the University of Montpellier (France).
- Honorary degree by the University of Chile, Santiago (Chile).
- Medal as honorary councilor of CSIC (Supreme National Council for Scientific Research, Spain).