Search continues in mysterious case of missing biologist

The Memphis [TN] COMMERCIAL-APPEAL ^ | 20 NOV 2001 | Thomas Jordan

[archy]

Search continues in mysterious case of missing biologist

By Thomas Jordan
jordan@gomemphis.com

One of the world's leading structural biologists, whose abandoned rental car was discovered on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge last week, remained missing Monday. Dr. Don C. Wiley, 57, a Harvard University biochemistry and biophysics professor, was in Memphis attending the annual meeting of the Scientific Advisory Board of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The board met Wednesday and Thursday at the hospital.

Wiley's rented white Mitsubishi Galant was discovered abandoned on the bridge at 4 a.m. Friday.

Police said the key was in the car's ignition switch and the vehicle's hazard lights hadn't been turned on. The car also had a full tank of gas.

Memphis Police Inspector Matt McCann said Monday Wiley's disappearance was baffling.

"We just don't know where he is right at the moment," McCann said. "There is no indication of foul play that we can determine at this point."

McCann said Wiley is "known throughout the world in his field. For him to suddenly disappear like this is of great concern to us. We're putting in a lot of man-hours trying to locate him."

Dr. William Evans, deputy director of St. Jude, said Wiley has been a member of the advisory board for about 10 years. The board, composed of 15 physicians and scientists, evaluates the hospital's programs through discussions with faculty members.

Evans said he talked with Wiley Thursday night after a dinner at The Peabody. He said Wiley was in a good mood.

"Don was always the life of the party in terms of any kind of conversation . . . and he was doing just that," Evans said.

Wiley is an accomplished scientist, Evans said.

"He has won some major scientific prizes. . . . He's been considered for the Nobel Prize. He's one of the world's premier scientists in his field."

Wiley is the John L. Loeb Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Harvard's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.

According to a biography of Wiley released by Harvard, he is "one of the most influential biologists of his generation." His work focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms through which viruses infect cells and the resulting immune responses they elicit.

He recently had been investigating dangerous viruses including AIDS, Ebola, Herpes Simplex and influenza.

In 1999, Wiley and another Harvard professor, Dr. Jack Strominger, won the Japan Prize for their discoveries of how the immune system protects humans from infections.

Wiley and Strominger won the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards in 1995 for their work on the immune system, which has shown how the body fights infection and rejects organ transplants.

- Thomas Jordan:

529-5880 November 20, 2001

[Sunshine55]

archy can you repost that link please? This one doesn't work.

[Aurelius]

"...in Memphis, folks have also been disappeared for their shoes>"

I did say, people have been disappeared for far less.

[JmyBryan]

I'm sure he was obliterated by a Stinger missile.

Of course, that will never come out. The cover-up is already in full swing.

[Don't Mess With Texas Women]

This event is most unlikely to have anything to do with bioterror. Imaginations are running way too wild. Wiley is outstanding and this is a sad story, but it is most likely a run of the mill crime. A structural biologics studies the three-dimensional sturcture of proteins. His reasearch efforts would focus on the structures of specific proteins from these pathogens and he is unlikley to even have the pathogens as agents growing in his lab. In other words he is unlikely to have the knowledge a terrorist would seek.

[Aurelius]

A stinger missile could take him out and leave his car intact? Get outta here.

[JmyBryan]

hehehe ...

[job]

He may not be a terrorist's top pick? Maybe, unless they were going to force him to create a cellular structure that would create a giant race of chickens to conquer the United States. Just imagine, running all around and pecking at things, it would be apocalyptic. . .

[Aurelius]

I've always had a problem with people not knowing when I'm joking. Of course, I often deliberatly promote it.

[Aurelius]

Do you know any of those arkies? Never had microbiologist for Thanksgiving dinner, or any other dinner for that matter. Might be a new taste-treat.

[Kale]

A guy like Wiley has absolutely zero value to a terrorist. The problem is that some of these terrorists are too stupid to knwo who to snatch and who not to. I dont think that it was suicide (world class Harvard scientists that have everything they want dont typically jump off bridges- bit ya never know). It seems much more like he knew something that somebody with ALOT of money didnt want him to know.

[Kale]

damn sorry about all the spelling errors there.

[TexKat]

Maybe he knows who the antrax culprit is and was going to expose him/her.

[Aurelius]

See post 16 above. Ever hear of Burroughs Wellcome - British drug producer, developer of AZT (Azidothymidine), a cancer drug developed in the '60's which typically killed the patients faster than it killed their cancer. It was resurrected in the '80's to treat AIDS because it had the relation to that disease that physicians value most: when it killed a patient, the fatal effects were indistinguishable from effects of the malady being treated. Much the same was the relation between syphillus and mercury based drugs, the drug of choice for the "pox" from the time of Paracelsus until the discovery of penicillan.

[ffrancone]

unless they were going to force him to create a cellular structure that would create a giant race of chickens to conquer the United States.

Well, the Tailban already have the "chicken" part down . . . running hither and thither as they are wont to do.

[TexKat]

Your post #24. You do realize we are not dealing with the smartest terriorist on the block. After all they started this jihad with the super power while they had maybe 10 shoulder rocket launchers.

Now tell me if we are dealing with someone that has a full deck.

They probably think Mr. Clean could be of some assistance to their biochemical weaponry production.

[Kale]

Kerry Mullis is an absolute fraud. Yeah he invented PCR, but and AIDS expert, he is not. Dont beleive a word that guy says. He is one of the reasons OJ Simpson is a free man.

[archy]

archy can you repost that link please? This one doesn't work.

It's still working for me, but I've grown accustomed to not counting on Commercial-Appeal stories to remain up for long before dissolving into the pay-to-read archive. But try *here*

-archy-/-

[concerned about politics]

If terrorists may not have wanted him, let's look the other way for one minute.....Anything our own goverment may want him for?

[concerned about politics]

HIV is not the cause of AIDS and, possibly, AIDS is not a even a communicable disease.

I've read that's the African governments' belief.
Why mostly gay people in the US then? They've become an elite and protected group among the socialists.
It would have to be tranferable. How else would it continue to follow the gay path?

[Aurelius]

OJ may be a free man because he was innocent. Read Tainting evidence by John Kelly and Phillip Wearne.

By the way, Mullis never testified at OJ's trial. Yes, his PCR technique was used, but the primary flaws in the DNA technology were the fault of the FBI and the LA police who almost certainly falsified evidence. I don't see how you can accuse Mullis of having any significant impact on the outcome.