Leonard Warren, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus

Leonard Warren, M.D., Ph.D., was an active member of Wistar’s research faculty from 1975 to 2004. Warren’s research interests included studies of glycoproteins, the biochemistry of surface membranes of normal and malignant animal cells, and secretory processes in normal and malignant cells, including cells from patients with hereditary diseases. He also held positions as professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania and a research professorship with the American Cancer Society, among others.

In his final years at Wistar, Warren turned to writing science biographies. His first book, Joseph Leidy: The Last Man Who Knew Everything, provides a detailed account of a leading nineteenth-century scientist who, despite being considered the founder of vertebrate paleontology and the father of parasitology, is little known today. The book, published in 1998, was winner of the Athenaeum Literary Award. Since then, Warren has also published books about Adele Marion Field, a nineteenth-century scientist, social activist, and missionary, and Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, a nineteenth-century naturalist noted both for his accomplishments and his profoundly difficult personality. His fourth book will be on geologist William Maclure, who was president and a major benefactor of Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences.

Warren spends his summers writing at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.