Odette Louise Shotwell, Ph.D. (4 May 1922 – 10 April 1998)[1] was an organic chemist known for her contributions to natural products chemistry of antibiotics and insecticides.
Personal life
Odette Louise Shotwell was born to Robert Leslie Shotwell (born December 15, 1894) and Ruby Mildred (Sammons) Shotwell[2] on May 4, 1922[1] in Wiley, Colorado, and grew up in Denver.[3] As a child, she had polio;[4] as a result, she had "severe, painful paralysis which makes walking in an erect position impossible."[5]
After completing her Ph.D., Shotwell went to work at the USDA/Agricultural Research Service in Peoria, Illinois. She worked as a research chemist in the Northern Utilization Research and Development Division for twenty five years, working at the USDA for her whole career. She retired from agricultural research in 1990.[11]
Service
Throughout her life, Shotwell fought to improve conditions for disabled people, women and people of color in science. As a chair holder of the education committee of her local NAACP chapter, she led a 40-volunteer initiative to tutor underserved children and the integration of Peoria schools in the 1960s.[12][13][14] She also served as president of the Peoria Chapter of League of Women Voters.[15] Other activity in her local community included consulting on education for an inner city program of the Peoria Area Council of Churches and serving as a board member of a center for the arts and sciences.[15]
Research
As a USDA Research Chemist, Shotwell discovered two new antibiotics (duramycin[16] and azacolutin[17]), and assisted with the discovery of two others (hydroxystreptomycin[18] cinnamycin[19]). She developed novel ways to separate antibiotics from fermenting microbes.[20]
By 1974, she was a Supervisory Chemist and Leader of Mycotoxin Analysis and Chemical Research.[21] She led a team developing insecticides, with a focus on the study of Japanese beetlehemolymph, and particularly beetles infected with milky disease. The group of researchers in which she worked at the Northern Laboratories went on to find a biological countermeasure to the beetle's mass infestation.[15]
Shotwell is best known for her contributions to the research of mycotoxins, especially to the study of aflatoxin, a carcinogen produced by mold that grows on rice and corn.[22][23] Byproducts of corn production fed to cattle can cause cancer, stunted growth, and congenital malformations.[23][24] In the late 1980s she was appointed the research leader of the Mycotoxin Research Unit still within the Agricultural Research Service of the USDA.[21] She instructed the Federal Drug Administration on how to detect contaminated feed grain using ultraviolet light.[25] As a member of the American Society of Oil Chemists she helped decide the standards of purity for the grain storage industry.[6] In 1980 she received the USDA's Distinguished Service Award for "contributing to the protection of human health by developing identification standards and analytical methods essential to excluding mold toxins from cereal foods, milk and animal feed."[26]
Later in the decade, Shotwell led a group investigating Fusarium fungi and their production of trichothecene toxins. Plants produce phytoalexins to defend against these fungi, so Shotwell and her team were designing fungi inhibitors based on these structures.[21]
^ ab"Chemist Nominated For New Award". Usda Employee Newsletter. XXVIII (3). Washington: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Office of Governmental and Public Affairs: 2. January 30, 1969. Retrieved 5 May 2020. Dr. Odette Shotwell, a research chemist with the Agricultural Research Service, is USDA's nominee for a recently established Civil Service Commission award — the Outstanding Handicapped Federal Employee of the Year... Polio contracted in her childhood left Dr. Shotwell with a severe, painful paralysis which makes walking in an erect position impossible.
^"Any job in America: Profile of courage and achievement". Performance: The Story of the Handicapped. Washington, D.C.: The President's Committee on National Employment of the Physically Handicapped. 1969. pp. 19–20.
^"NAACP Charges Peoria Schools Failed to Desegregate Facilities". The Dispatch. July 18, 1975.
^ abcStanley, Autumn (1993). Mothers and Daughters of invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology. Metuchen, N.J., and London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 826.
^Lindenfelser, L. A.; Pridham, T. G.; Shotwell, O. L.; Stodola, F. H. (1957–1958). "Antibiotics against plant disease. IV. Activity of duramycin against selected microorganisms". Antibiotics Annual. 5: 241–247. ISSN0570-3131. PMID13521812.
^ abUS US3017327A, "Azacolutin extraction from s. cinnamomeus var. azacoluta", issued 1959-11-17
^Stodola, Frank H.; Shotwell, Odette L.; Borud, Anne Marie; Benedict, Robert G.; Riley, Arthur C. (1951-05-01). "Hydroxystreptomycin, a New Antibiotic from Streptomyces Griseocarneus2". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 73 (5): 2290–2293. doi:10.1021/ja01149a109. ISSN0002-7863.
^Benedict, R. G.; Dvonch, W.; Shotwell, O. L.; Pridham, T. G.; Lindenfelser, L. A. (November 1952). "Cinnamycin, an antibiotic from Streptomyces cinnamoneus nov. sp". Antibiotics & Chemotherapy (Northfield, Ill.). 2 (11): 591–594. ISSN0570-3123. PMID24542148.
^"Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office". Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office. 774. United States Patent Office: 643. January 1962.
^ abcCooke, Linda (1989). "Fungal troublemaker under fire". Agricultural Research. 37 (7). Science and Education Administration, U.S. Department of Agriculture: 8–9.
^"For Your Information". Usda Employee Newsletter. XXVIII (9). April 24, 1969. Retrieved 5 May 2020. DR. ODETTE SHOTWELL displays the award certificate she received as one of 10 finalists as the Outstanding Handicapped Federal Employee of the Year, a new award sponsored by the Civil Service Commission.... Katherine A. Niemeyer, Chief Dietitian, Veterans Administration Restoration Center Hospital, East Orange, N.J., was named as Outstanding Handicapped Federal Employee of the Year.
