Stanley, Wendell Meredith (1904-1971), an American biochemist, did outstanding research on viruses. In 1935, he isolated the tobacco mosaic virus in crystalline form, and showed it to be a protein molecule. Before this discovery, scientists had assumed that viruses were submicroscopic living organisms. Stanley shared the 1946 Nobel Prize for chemistry for preparing enzymes and virus proteins in pure form. He was born in Ridgeville, Indiana.
