Winthrop John Van Leuven Osterhout, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetWinthrop John Van Leuven Osterhout
American botanist
Date of Birth: 02-Aug-1871
Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York, United States
Date of Death: 09-Apr-1964
Profession: botanist
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Leo 
About Winthrop John Van Leuven Osterhout
- Winthrop John Van Leuven Osterhout (August 2, 1871 – April 9, 1964) was an American botanist. Osterhout was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Reverend John Van Leuven Osterhout, a Baptist minister, and Annie Loranthe Beman.
- His mother and infant sister died in 1873, leaving his father to raise him alone.
- However, this proved difficult and so Winthrop was given to his grandmother in Baltimore to raise until the age of eight.
- His father having remarried, he returned to live with John and his wife in Providence, Rhode Island.In 1889 he entered Brown University where he developed an interest in botany.
- He joined the staff of Brown University in 1893, where he taught botany for two years and graduated with an M.A.
- in 1894.
- He studied at Bonn, Germany for a year, then returned home in 1896 and moved to California.
- In 1899 he received a Ph.D.
- at the University of California with a dissertation on Rhabdonia, whereupon he married his first wife, Anna Maria Landstrom.
- The couple would have two daughters: Anna Maria and Olga.At the University of California, he was promoted to assistant professor from 1901 to 1908 then associate professor of botany 1908–1909.
- In 1909, he moved to Harvard University as an assistant professor of botany, taking a step down in rank but being closer to the important Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole.
- He rose to the rank of professor at Harvard in 1913 at the age of 42.Spending every summer at the laboratory in Woods Hole, he was named a trustee in 1919.
- He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1919.
- From 1919 until 1964, he was the co-editor of the Journal of General Physiology, along with founder Jacques Loeb.
- His work appeared with the first issue, and a total of 120 of his articles were published by the journal, up until 1956.The death of Loeb in 1924 left a vacancy at the Rockefeller Institute, and Osterhout joined the staff in 1926.
- There he performed much productive research.
- During the 1930s, he was the first to suggest the active transport mechanism of a carrier molecule for moving solutes across a cell membrane.
- In 1933 he married a second time, to his colleague, fellow plant physiologist Marian Irwin, the third daughter of Robert Walker Irwin and his Japanese wife, Iki.By 1951, Osterhout's health began to fail.
- He died at St.
- Barnabas Hospital at the age of 92, after a long bout of illness.
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