Elliot Volkin Obituary

April 23, 1919 - December 30, 2011

Elliot Volkin, distinguished biochemist and founding member of the Jewish Congregation of Oak Ridge, died Friday morning, December 30, 2011. He was 92. He was born April 23, 1919, in Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania, the youngest of seven children born to Morris and Jennie Volkin, both now deceased. Until his death, Elliot was the last remaining sibling. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Pennsylvania State University in 1942 with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and received a fellowship to attend the graduate school of his choice. Having already been in correspondence with a rising protein biochemist, Dr. Hans Neurath, at Duke University, he headed to Durham, North Carolina in 1942 to join the five other graduate students in the Bacteriology department. Volkin earned his master's (1945) and doctoral (1947) degrees at Duke and completed a post-doctoral fellowship there in 1948. While at Duke, he met the love of his life, Sylvia Fine, a graduate student in French. They were married on August 17, 1947 and, following a half-year at Duke, moved to Oak Ridge where they quickly made a large and close circle of friends and became involved in many community activities. (Both the Volkin family and the Oak Ridge community lost a shining star when Sylvia died in 2002.) Elliot worked as a senior staff member of the start-up Biology Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, conducting and directing research on biochemical function of nucleic acids. With his research partner Lazarus Astrachan, Volkin first observed and described what later came to be known as messenger RNA, or mRNA, in 1956. Fellow microbiologists have called the discovery of mRNA – which transmits genetic information from the cell's nucleus to the protein – building ribosomes – "probably the most important event in the history of molecular biology next to the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA just three years earlier." From 1969 to 1980 he served as scientific director of the biochemistry section of the Biology Division at ORNL. During his tenure at Oak Ridge, he published more than 80 scientific papers and articles and was frequently selected to chair meetings at international conferences. Following his work on RNA associated witih bacteriophage, Volkin continued his research with mammalian cells in tissue culture, tryng to determine how cancer cells differ from normal cells. While not earth-shaking," he said, "it was good, fundamental science." Volkin was a member of the American Society of Biological Chemists and the American Chemical Society, among other professional societies. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in recognition of his meritorious efforts to advance science. A life member of the Penn State Alumni Association, he was awarded their prestigious Outstanding Aumni award in 2006. Preceded in death by his parents, siblings, and beloved daughter Marcia and wife Sylvia, Volkin is survived by his daughter Karen Lee Brunner and her husband, James Brunner, of Knoxville and his daughter's husband Louis Rabinowitz of Oak Ridge. Remaining with loving memories of their "Uncle Kaney," are nephews Barry Berman of Atlanta, Michael Volkin of Romney, West Virginia, and nieces Janice Volkin of Portland, Oregan, Rebecca Nan and Louise Kline of Warren, Ohio, and Judy Zimlin of Dunedin, Florida as well as his brother Leonard's wife, Carol Volkin. Elliot will be sorely missed by the members of the Jewish Congregation of Oak Ridge and his dear friends and fellow Lady Vols fans. The family requests that any memorials be in the form of donations to a charity of the donor's choice.