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Carl Oppenheimer: The Microbe Man
| Article
# : |
19129 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1991 |
2,690 Words |
| Author
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Hank Hogan
Hank Hogan is a science writer in Austin, Texas. |
Microbiologist Carl Oppenheimer thinks that nature, with a little help, can clean up oil spills in the open ocean. This conviction has resulted in a 20-year search to find the right combination of microbes, ways to produce them in sufficient numbers and the means to deliver them to do the job of digesting spilled oil. The results of two tests of his oil-eating bugs this summer indicate that Oppenheimer may be right.
The connection between oil and the sea was established early in Oppeheimer's life. Born in 1921 in Los Angeles, Oppenheimer recalls his parents taking him camping at Carpenteria, which is just south of Santa Barbara. There, years before any offshore drilling for oil, tar balls littered the beach. It was standard practice to take along a can of kerosene to clean tar off their feet. Oppenheimer explains, "The area is commonly called 'Coal-Oil Point' because the oil is in rather shallow sand formations and continually comes up into the surface and onto the water."
Oppenheimer, although always interested in microbiology, actually wanted to go into medicine. By the time the United States entered World War II in 1941, he'd already earned degrees in medical parasitology and medical microbiology. He volunteered for service in the Navy and entered the medical corps. Eventually he became an officer and served nearly a decade in either active duty or the reserves. The effects of that military duty are still evident in his close cropped hair and his no-nonsense answers to questions.
After being discharged from active duty at the close of the war, Oppenheimer was faced with some choices. With a wife and three children, he decided that the competition to get into medical school was too great and so made a career change. Pursuing his interest in the environment and microbiology, Oppenheimer entered the Ph.D. program at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. There his earlier experiences put him in good stead in more ways than one. He worked his way through as an X-ray medical technician, supplemented by the GI bill.
At Scripps, Oppenheimer studied under Claude ZoBell, a leading microbial ecologist. ZoBell was a remarkable teacher, demanding much from his students but not overpowering them. There was an academically active student body, full of young, inquiring minds constantly bouncing ideas off one another. The institute was small in those days, with an intimate faculty that consisted of the leading oceanography experts. Added to the mix was the fact that at the time, the late 1940s, the discipline of marine science was
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