MSRA=Metropolitan Squash Racquets
Assoc.; John played in league matches.

John Sturman has made significant contributions to basic research in developmental disabilities. He has made history in his personal fight against leukemia. And he has made a garden paradise around the house he lives in with his wife Pat on Staten Island, in New York City. In retirement, when garden work is suspended during these wintry days, he continues as a master-do-it-yourself around the house. Call him on the phone and he is apt to be washing his paint brushes after painting the ceiling in the attic, or repairing the dishwasher.

John was head of the Department of Developmental Biochemistry at the New York State Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities, on Staten Island, when, in April 1996 he was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). He was 54.

In CML, unlike other leukemias, the stem cells made by the bone marrow are characterized by chromosonal abnormalities – a shorter chromosome 22, called the Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome, and a longer chromosome 9. This results in uncontrolled synthesis of white cells, and a lack of platelets, which are needed for blood clotting.

On the right side of the house, facing
the street, the gate leads to the patio.

After six months of treatment with alpha interferon, John’s bone marrow was clear of the Philadelphia chromosome, but after 12 months, the abnormality had returned. Increasing doses had no effect, other than making him too sick to continue working. His illness progressed to the “blast crisis phase,” and he was told that he had three to six months to live. John retired from the Institute, although he continued for some years to serve as a consultant to his former colleagues, and he got in touch with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, to discuss a bone marrow transplant.

In the course of his career, John has published over 300 papers in scientific journals, and when he retired, an issue of a scientific journal, Amino Acids, was devoted to honoring him in 1998. The editors noted in particular John's part in establishing that taurine plays a fundamental role in brain development. Taurine is an amino acid (amino acids are the building blocks of proteins) that is synthesized in the body. That's putting it simply. John is always ready to provide more adequate explanations of this and other complex matters. Suffice it to say, fish are high in taurine – as common wisdom has it, "fish are brain food."

Pachysandra and brick paths on
both sides of the path to the patio.

What John describes as his biggest breakthrough came as a result of a 1975 Harvard School of Public Health study dealing with nutritional problems in cats. One of those problems was taurine deficiency associated with retinal degeneration. John asked the scientists involved in the study for their supply of frozen cats and got them. He would dissect their brains and other tissues.

The frozen cats were a bonanza for John, perhaps best appreciated in light of a tale he tells about his difficulty in getting chicken brains and livers for his research. When the butcher was informed of John's purpose in obtaining the chickens, he insisted that they be butchered humanely – that is by the butcher himself, who proceeded to chop off their heads.

An earlier study conducted at Helsinki Hospital in 1969 by John and colleagues from other institutions suggested that premature infants might require diets supplemented with cystine, an amino acid needed to make proteins, because of an inability to form cystine from methionine, an amino acid in the diet. Specifically, there was no measurable activity of an enzyme, cystathionase, the last step in the formation of cystine, in the liver of the human fetus (aborted) or premature infant (died within 24 hours of birth). Cystathionase activity was measureable in the liver of a full-term infant (died within 24 hours of birth).

Lavender, two rows of sedum and
taller foxgloves facing the garage.

What the study showed was that for premature infants, cystine is an "essential" amino acid -- that is, cannot be made from the body and must be supplied by food. Only for the full-term baby was it a "nonessential" amino acid, one that can be made by the body. Human milk protein is higher in cystine than is cows milk protein, which is used in human infant formula, suggesting that the infant formula needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Similarly, human milk contains more taurine than cows milk, and what taurine there is in cows milk is purified out in the preparation of infant formula. John's work with kittens born to taurine-deficient cats showed that taurine was important in brain development, especially of the cerebellum. In cats, the cerebellum undergoes extensive postnatal development, as it does in human infants. This suggested that human infant formula needed to be adjusted with respect to taurine as well.

In 1981 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the addition of taurine to infant formula. A patent taken out on the basis of the work done by John and colleagues on the addition of taurine to infant formula led to a law suit, which was settled out of court. John surmises that the Institute got several million dollars of the "taurine money," and John got at least three $30,000 to $40,000 grants.

Grape and wisteria arbor: pachy-
sandra, ajuga, chrysanthemums.

By the time John had retired and obtained a bone marrow transplant, in 1998, he was 56. For the procedure, a severe conditioning regimen was required, involving 48 hours of high-dose chemotherapy followed by eight 45-minute sessions of total body high-dose radiation, in order to destroy completely all the bone marrow in the body. Bone marrow transplants had been limited to younger candidates more likely to be able to withstand such an ordeal.

John, however, had been playing squash, running and skiing, as well as tending his garden. He was in superb condition before his illness. He had no other underlying medical problems, and he was a scientist, able to understand in scientific detail exactly what the procedure would involve. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center agreed to do the transplant if a match was available at the National Donor Program. Two were found. John received a bone marrow transplant in May, 1998, making medical history as the oldest person at that time ever to do so and survive.

The transplant was successful and John has been free of leukemia ever since. He had two open-heart surgeries subsequent to the transplant, and has been getting gamma globulin infusions every four weeks to compensate for nonfunctioning adrenal glands in the production of immunoglobulin.

In rear corner of patio: pink geraniums, white
begonias, and pachysandra behind low walls.

All this has not prevented John from cultivating his garden. A visitor is offered a glass of wine, and John will enjoy one while giving a tour. His garden displays not only skill in design but also brickwork worthy of a master mason. John's house is on a hill, and at one point, a crumbling brick retaining wall on the property of a neighbor farther down the hill and supporting much of John's property threatened to collapse. At first, the neighbor offered to split the cost of replacing the wall, a long one almost 20 feet high at its highest point. But when the neighbor learned that this would cost $30,000, he withdrew the offer. John rebuilt the wall himself.

John was born about 50 miles south of London in the town of Brighton, in the county of Sussex. During World War II the German bombers flew over Brighton on their way to bombing London and Coventry, but if they couldn’t make it, they would unload their bombs on Brighton. John can remember being in a pram and seeing clusters of bombers overhead. When he was four or five, he was evacuated to Yorkshire, where he stayed with his paternal aunt until the end of the war. He started school there and recalls that he was picked on because of his accent – his was a southern accent, and the county of Yorkshire is in the north of England.

Dianthus, apple and mini apples trees, goose-
berries on sides of path, steps paved by John.

John's father was a lathe operator and he was not drafted during the war because the company he worked for was making airplane engines. His mother was a Registered Nurse. The family lived in council (governmentally supplied) housing, with a shed alongside the garage for coke for the boiler and an outside toilet. In the shed, John's father built a lathe, with a motor, with which he was able to make wooden candlesticks and small wooden bowls, no mean feat.

At the end of his last year in primary school, when he was 10, John took the "Eleven plus" examination, required under the British educational regimen, famous or infamous, depending on your point of view, for the way it sorted students out at an early age according to their ability. The Eleven plus determined whether the student's further education would be academic, technical or "functional" (trade school). The result was an intense competition for a place in one of the prestigious grammar (secondary) schools.

Six months so far to clear large patch at very
top of path up slope for ornamental grasses.

John went to grammar school, where an examination after the first four years placed him in the "upper fifth form," pointing him in the direction of a career in science. Subsequently, the "O-level," a subject-based qualification based on a nationwide examination, led to two years in a "sixth form" devoted entiredly to science, and his top grades qualified him to attend a university.

He attended University College London (UCL), which had a strong chemistry department, for three years, obtaining his degree in 1962. This was followed by a master's degree in biochemistry the following year. In 1966, he received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from King's College Hospital and its associated medical school.

It was as a result of a chance contact while he was in a post-doctoral program at King's that John came to work at Columbia University in New York with the head of pediatric research at the New York Institute of Basic Research. John was instrumental in setting up the pediatric research department at the Institute on Staten Island.

At the Institute, John's specialty was homocystinuria, an inherited disorder involving an enzyme deficiency that prevents the body from properly processing (metabolizing) certain amino acids classified as sulfur amino acids. One of the effects of homocystinuria is mental retardation. Homocystinuria is now looked for at birth, as is phenylketonuria (PKU), another metabolic disorder described by the first Director of the Institute. Both diseases can be ameliorated by dietary intervention.

John built a birdhouse for purple
martins, which are fun to watch.

John had played soccer at school in England, including during his graduate and postgraduate studies and research, and in the U.S. he played it semi-professionally. He was also a squash player, and when he came to the U.S. he joined a club in Brooklyn Heights that has squash and tennis courts. He met his wife Pat, who also grew up in England, through the British Schools and University Club and its squash group. John and Pat were married in 1976.

In between gardening seasons, John devotes himself to indoor projects. One of them was building a special birdhouse for purple martins. Many people on Staten Island have them, John says, and it's fun to watch the birds go in and out the windows. The concrete for the post is in the ground, and the birdhouse goes up as soon as winter ends. He built it and hopes that they will come.

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