Edward Rubenstein

Edward Rubenstein was an Internal Medicine physician, with areas of expertise which included clotting disorders that predispose to pulmonary embolism.[2][3]

In the early 1970s Stanford University marked a landmark period in particle physics research with the creation of the colliding beam storage ring, called the Stanford Positron Electron Accelerating Ring (SPEAR) in 1972. Among the famous discoveries were the J/psi and tau particles. A byproduct of the ring's operation was an intense beam of synchrotron radiation. Rubenstein and his colleagues E. Barrie Hughes and Robert Hofstadter posited that there may be numerous applications of this intensely powerful, tuneable, and linearly polarized radiation to biomedical imaging, including intravenous coronary arteriography. They devised a synchrotron radiation based imaging system which has been used worldwide.[4][5]

Rubenstein proposed that the polarized synchrotron light which is emitted by relativistic electrons orbiting neutron stars (linear in the plane of rotation, with opposite helicity above and below the plane) would selectively photolyze chiral molecules floating on grains in nearby space. This mechanism would produce an enantiomeric excess of either right- or left-handed molecules which can be delivered to Earth by passing comets.[6]

In addition, Rubenstein pioneered research on the consequences of the misincorporation of nonprotein amino acids, especially the lower homologue of proline, azetidine-2-carboxylic acid (Aze). This compound eludes the gate-keeping function of the prolyl tRNAs, and enters a wide range of proteins. For instance, the central region in a consensus epitope of myelin basic protein consists of the sequence: proline, arginine, threonine, proline, proline, proline. Dairy milk from cattle fed sugar beet byproducts is high in Aze, therefore infants fed such milk are exposed to Aze in their diets.[7][8]

Rubenstein contributed numerous book publications in the medical and physics literature. The volume entitled Introduction to Molecular Medicine was selected by the British Medical Association as the Best Book Published in Medicine in 1995.