The Third  Biennial Pomerat Memorial Lectureship
In honor of Charles M. Pomerat (1905-1964)

will be given by

^{History and life of Dr. Charles M. Pomerat}

^{written by Diane Chico
Graduate, Cell Biology}

Charles M. Pomerat was what you can consider a "Renaissance man of biological sciences," showing us an appreciation of the bridge between science and art. He was a scientist, an artist, a humanist…versatile in his research and hobbies and a highly skilled and knowledgeable microscopist, researcher, and teacher. His achievements and interests encompassed a broad spectrum of subjects; he was a traveler through all aspects of the biological sciences.

His Life

Born July 23, 1905 in Southbridge, Massachusetts, Pomerat was 1 of 3 sons of Charles Marius and Maria Edna (Demers) Pomerat. In his early years in college, Pomerat’s beginning as a scientist started with his job as a student assistant first in botany (1928) then in biology in Clark University at Worcester, Massachusetts. The following year, he was a member of a botanical expedition to Hudson Bay. In 1932, he received his Bachelor degree from Clark University. Two years later, he received his Masters from Harvard and his Ph.D. as well in 1937. With his interests in general physiology, he was made an Assistant Professor at Clark University. In 1939, he went to the University of Alabama as an Associate Professor of Biology, becoming a Full Professor in 1940. Then in 1943, the University of Texas Medical Branch made Pomerat a Professor of Anatomy. In 1945, he became Professor of Cytology and Director of the Tissue Culture Lab at UTMB. After 15 years at UTMB, Pomerat and most of his staff transferred to the newly organized Pasadena Foundation for Medical Research at Pasadena, California. There, he was immediately given the position of Director of Research, which he held until his death on June 17, 1964. During his years in California, Pomerat was also the Clinical Professor of Pathology at the College of Medical Evangelists (now Loma Linda University) and Adjunct Professor of Anatomy at the University of Southern California.

In the midst of his rise in the academic ladder, Pomerat received other honors and engaged in various research activities. As a Rockefeller Foundation Traveling Fellow, he studied at Buenos Aires under physiologist Bernardo Houssay as well as at Cambridge. He was a worker at the Bermuda Biological Station, and during World War II, he was occupied with his position as Director for the Subtropical Marine Laboratory of the United States Navy both at the Oceanographic Institute at Woods Hole and in Miami. Due to his renowned work in various research problems, such as his technique in time-lapsed cinematography of cellular changes in tissue culture at UTMB, Pomerat received lectureships from around the world, including Europe, Japan, and Central and South America.^**

During his academic work at Argentina and Mexico, Pomerat became impressed with the architecture of the Spanish colonial period, leading him to study architectural development in various parts of the world. His artistic endeavors eventually grew to include other aspects of art, particularly watercolor sketching. Thus, throughout his travels, aside from taking pictures of the sights he saw, he sketched or painted the landscapes, environment, and architectural works of the places he visited.

Besides that, he was known for his clear and informative drawings of images he viewed under the microscope as well as for his anatomical drawings. In his life and his work, he combined the richness of both the sciences and humanities. During his tenure at Galveston, he developed some of his artistic talents. And as part of his teaching, he set up a lithography stone at UTMB, initiating his students into the mysteries of this technique. And aside from his numerous contributions to science, he was also a cultural leader, active in various community affairs. At one time, he envisioned a "Marineland" where people can learn and enjoy themselves. His vision did not materialize while in Galveston until 1964.

His Career

Throughout his career, Pomerat was a member of many societies such as: the American Association of Anatomists, the American Physiological Society, the Endocrine Society, the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, and the History of Science Society. He was also an associate of the Neurological Association and the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Diseases as well as honorary member of the Urological Association and honorary fellow of societies such as the Royal Microscopical Society (London), the Italian Society of Experimental Biology, the Mexican Society of Natural History, and the Japanese Association of Anatomists, to name a few. At the same time, he once held the Vice President ‘s chair of the International Society for Cell Biology, the President’s position for the Texas Academy of Science, and was Founder and, later, President of the Tissue Culture Association.

In essence, his involvement in the sciences was extensive. His curiosity covered a broad scope of scientific interests as he delved into a wide range of basic biological problems. He contributed to areas such as neuroanatomy, cancer, growth, development of plants, cellular characteristics of various tissues, and toxicity of chemicals to cells.^**

In fact, Pomerat was a pioneer in the development of tissue culture as a viable research area. He was a master of time-lapse cinematography of nervous tissue cultures. I suppose, you can say that he was a futurist taking advantage of cinematographic techniques in application to further science, to record the action of cells in culture. He was probably science’s first "movie director." An example of a series of photographs is seen in below.

His "directorial debut" was established in his tissue culture lab at UTMB, where his teaching efforts matched his research contribution to the Department of Anatomy (UTMB). With Dr. Thurlo Thomas, whom he studied with previously at Woods Hole and Harvard, Pomerat began his initial studies on tissue culture techniques together with examinations of the most effective methods to prepare tissue cultures from various mammalian tissue sources. While there was much mystery about tissue culture, the technique first established by Ross Harrison at Yale many years previously, Pomerat, among others, discovered a technique by which to efficiently grow the cells in tissue culture with appropriate nutritive media. At the same time, Pomerat began the preparation of his most significant scientific contribution: recording cellular activity observed in tissue culture using time-lapsed cinematography, leading to the gradual development for the precise recording of significant cellular changes in tissue culture as they occurred in time.^** With these techniques, we soon learned that nuclei revolved in the cells and that intense pinocytosis by cells occur in ordinary tissue-culture preparations. Furthermore, with the increasing number of students working in his lab, Pomerat conductive extensive studies that included such works as: (1) the first recorded pulsations of oligodendroglia, astrocytes, and Schwann cells…a classic on the pulsatile activity of neurons from human brain in tissue culture (1951); (2) a report on rotating nuclei in tissue cultures of adult human nasal mucosa (1953); (3) with Dr. T.C. Hsu, in studying tissue cultures of embryonic human spleen, reported the first time possibility to examine separate human chromosomes and to record their activity (1953)…and the list goes on.

Pomerat’s work with tissue culture was quite extensive that in a letter to the American Association of Anatomists, he asked that tissue culture become a viable research area to present at meetings and other major scientific arenas. Then, in 1954, he co-chaired the tissue culture conference at Duke University under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences, where he also made a report on the toxicity of a great number of chemical agents on various tissue culture preparations.^** Thus, it was his idea that tissue culture be one focus at meetings. Such as it is that today, in many meetings, the use of tissue cultures is one of the basic experimental methods used to answer and/or support research studies---in cancer, infectious disease and immunity, neuroscience, and cell biology, to name a few.

His Legacy

Of his many contributions to the University of Texas, Dr. Pomerat was one of the most effective scientific ambassadors UT had. His scientific work was financed primarily by grants from many different sources. He was also considered one of the most effective teachers in both the graduate and medical schools wherever he taught. In many accounts, he delighted his audience with wit and humor interspersed with his teachings and with his two handed writings on the board as he brought home a point.

Dr. Pomerat was a careful and systematic observer of biological processes. His primary concern was the accurate photographic reproduction of cellular activity such that he made hundreds of thousands of feet of time-lapsed movies recording for posterity the activities of all kinds of cells from a variety of mammalian tissues.

Charles M. Pomerat, in such a short time, lived a rich and full life. He was not only a dedicated scientist but also a proficient artist, an avid traveler, and a pioneer in his own right. His legacy, along with the many time-lapsed videos he made, is the encouragement his life has shown that we can envision our work in the many aspects of the scientific field. And that science is just not the facts and data we gather from our research but also the humanistic endeavors we can accomplish with it…be it in graphic arts, poetry, or in movies.

**Chauncey Leake (1964) "Charles M. Pomerat" Texas Reports on Biology and Medicine.