History

The Wistar Institute, the nation's first independent biomedical research facility, was founded in 1892. It is named for Caspar Wistar, a prominent Philadelphia physician who began his medical practice in 1787.

Dr. Wistar was author of the first American textbook of anatomy and succeeded his friend Thomas Jefferson as president of the American Philosophical Society. In 1808 he became chair of the Department of Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Wistar was cultivated in the humanities as well as the sciences and hosted the famous Wistar "parties" for leading intellectuals of the city as well as foreign visitors at his home at Fourth and Locust streets.

To augment his medical lectures and illustrate comparative anatomy, Dr. Wistar began a collection of dried, wax-injected, and preserved human specimens. The collection was enhanced by a series of models in wood and papier-mâché constructed by America's first native-born professional sculptor, William Rush. Today, The Wistar Institute Museum owns the only extant examples of Rush's anatomical models.

Two years before Dr. Wistar's death in 1818, he appointed a young physician, Dr. William Edmonds Horner, as caretaker of the museum collection. After Wistar's death, William Horner, who later served as dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, maintained and expanded the collection of anatomical specimens. The combined collections became known as the Wistar and Horner Museum.

The Wistar and Horner Museum collections were further expanded under the curation of Dr. Joseph Leidy, who acquired animal specimens as well as fossil and anthropological samples. By the late 1880s, however, the collection had grown so large and well used that it was beginning to show signs of wear and neglect, a situation compounded by a fire in Logan Hall of the University of Pennsylvania, where the museum was housed. University Provost William Pepper began a fundraising campaign to provide for rehousing and refurbishing the Wistar and Horner collections to assure their continued availability for study and the teaching of medicine.

It was at this point that Isaac Jones Wistar, the great nephew of Dr. Caspar Wistar, stepped into the picture. A prominent Philadelphia lawyer and retired Civil War Brigadier General, Isaac Wistar made an initial gift to Provost Pepper's campaign to save the museum. However, Isaac Wistar then offered a more far-reaching proposal. Determined to create a lasting gift for the serious study of biological research as well as to preserve his great uncle's teaching collection, Isaac Wistar funded an endowment and research building for The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology. The University of Pennsylvania transferred the museum collections to the Institute by Deed of Gift in 1892, with the actual transfer of collections into the new building in 1894. Designed by Philadelphia architects George W. and William G. Hewitt, the original building, today still a part of the Institute's research facility, sits at the corner of 36th and Spruce streets and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as part of the historic university area. The institute is also marked with a historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Shortly after the turn of the century, The Wistar Institute began to fulfill Isaac Wistar's dream of a center for "new and original research" in the biological and medical sciences. Under the leadership of Milton Greenman, M.D., and Henry Donaldson, Ph.D., the Institute developed and bred the WISTARAT, the first standardized laboratory animal. It is estimated that more than half of all laboratory rats today are descendants of the original WISTARAT line begun in 1906. The Institute also gained international recognition as a training ground for young scientists from around the world and for the scientific journals published by the Wistar Press. During World War I, when most of Europe was unable to print or purchase scientific publications, The Wistar Press sent out thousands of free journals. By 1925, the Institute had solidified its reputation as a center of American biology.

The modern era of scientific discovery at The Wistar Institute began under the leadership of Dr. Hilary Koprowski. During the 1950s, the Institute became a leader in vaccine research. This research was made possible by another Wistar discovery: a cell line known as WI-38. Developed by Leonard Hayflick, Ph.D., and Paul S. Moorhead, Ph.D., WI-38 is a strain of normal human cells that grows abundantly in the laboratory. Hayflick and Moorhead demonstrated that almost any virus introduced into WI-38 could be transformed into a safe vaccine. Using the WI-38 cell line, Wistar scientists developed vaccines against rubella, or German measles, and rabies.

By the 1970s, Wistar was devoting a major part of its staff time and budget resources to cancer research. In 1972, in recognition of its excellent record in the study of cancer, The Wistar Institute became a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center in basic science research. Thirty years later The Wistar Institute still holds that nationally recognized title.

For the past 20 years, Wistar's researchers have expanded their studies in the areas of genetics and immunology. Wistar scientists were among the first to develop monoclonal antibodies, protein molecules that are able to detect and destroy foreign invaders, including cancer cells. Wistar scientists have also identified significant genes associated with breast, lung, and prostate cancers, and a molecule known as human interleukin-12, which appears to have a profound impact on the body's immune response to cancers and infectious agents including HIV.

Today, The Wistar Institute's more than 30 laboratories are grouped into three research programs: Gene Expression and Regulation; Immunology; and Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis. Working in the original 1892 building and the more recently added Cancer Research Building, they continue to conduct multi-disciplinary investigations on all types of cancers as well as viral and autoimmune diseases. For more than 100 years, Isaac Wistar's vision and legacy have enabled The Wistar Institute to continue its groundbreaking research aimed at improving the health of all mankind.