Joseph G. Kunkel's life as a biologist

Joseph G. Kunkel Jr. was born in Oceanside, Long Island to Alice and Joseph G. Kunkel Sr.

At the age of eight he was already an avid insect collector. He collected Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera and Coleoptera in particular. He reared various Lepidoptera including Monarchs, Giant Silk Moths and Io Moths from egg to adult in his childhood bedroom with the approving eye of indulgent parents. He retained this interest in insects through his K-12 education becoming a young expert by the time he chose his college.

He declined to become an entomologist in favor of becoming a more general zoology major as a University Scholar at Columbia College in NYC. In Morningside Heights NYC the major insect he encountered was the German cockroach, which he encountered first while bar-tending in the Men's Faculty Club, where he worked for his meals.

In 1961 as a Columbia sophomore, Joe requisitioned an incubator and started rearing cultures of the German cockroach in his dormitory room. This led in his Junior Year to having a lab room in Schermerhorn Hall along with a Junior summer job working for a graduate student of Francis J. Ryan, Marla Perkel (daugther of Edna Perkel Gurewitsch). From Marla, Joe learned the technology of microbial genetics, helping her do experiments by making growth media plates and scoring the plates and growth tubes that made up her experiments. Joe also took pictures of the bacterial cultures to illustrate Marla's experiments.

In his own Schermerhorn lab Joe proceeded to study the role of feeding in controlling cockroach development and did the basic experiments that ended up being the basis of his first publication (Kunkel, 1965). These experiments would allow him to synchronize the development of large numbers of cockroaches which would be the model system with which he would develop his Ph. D. Dissertation.

With Francis J. Ryan's untimely death in July 1963, Joe would be taken under the wing of Professor Arthur W. Pollister, a cytologist in the Zoology Department for whom Joe served as a lab technician his senior year. Dr. Pollister recommended Joe apply to Case-Western Reserve University where Howard Schneiderman had put together a bold new Biology Department and Developmental Biology Center which housed a stellar list of insect biologists, several from the Cambridge University school of insect biology led by V. B. Wigglesworth and several from the Harvard school of insect biology led by Carroll M. Williams. This was a wonderful place for Joe to develop and share his interests in insects. He studied in the lab of Michael Locke who was kind enough to allow to play with his RCA EMU3 Electron Microscope while he developed his skills at experimental design and data analysis, a love that followed him to his last years. He obtained his Ph. D. in 3-1/2 years based on using his synchronous cockroach research model system which he had developed as an undergrad at Columbia.

On gaining his Ph. D. Joe stayed at CWRU for 6 more months to complete the equivalent of a Masters Degree in Biometry. He lacked one course in epidemiology to complete the degree but it was the biometric methodology that he wanted and so he left for his second post-doctoral at Yale University, where he would study biochemistry with Gerry Wyatt.

At Yale University in the lab of Gerry Wyatt,

Joe developed a relationship with M. L. Pan who would become a treasured friend and colleague. Pan passed on his approach and understanding of making and using specific antisera to study protein identities and titer. Pan and Joe initiated a study of the vitellogenins of their respective insects, Hyalophora cecropia and Blattella germanica. They showed that the two vitellogenins were only recognized respectively by the oocyte pinocytotic-uptake-mechanism of its own species (Kunkel and Pan, 1976).

After two years in Gerry Wyatt's lab Joe accepted an Assistant Professor position in the Zoology Department at UMass Amherst where he spent 42 years rising to Full Professor in 1985 and taking five sabbaticals (UC Berkeley 1977, U Berne CH 1985, MBL Woods Hole 1993, LMU Munich 2001, JKU Linz 2009). His research was funded by a series of NIH, NSF and NOAA federal grants as well as commercial grants in aid from Applicable Electronics that supplied equipment and funds to pursue the development and use of the Non-Invasive Ion Probe, which became a signature method to which Joe contributed protocols and a user facility for guest investigators. Through this facility Joe contributed in particular to the study of pollen tube growth which was being used as a model system for growth by his colleague, Peter Hepler at UMass Amherst.

After returning from his MBL Sabbatical Joe switched some his efforts to studying marine organisms being funded by the NOAA NMFS CMER Grants. He studied Winter Flounder vitellogenesis, Cod vitellogenesis, Tautog Development, and finally Lobster Serum Proteins and Shell Disease. The studies of marine organisms was augmented by spending over 25 legs of Volunteer Scientist duty on NOAA ships Albatross IV, Delaware II and HB Bigelow.

Joe retired from UMass Amherst in 2012 becoming UMass Emeritus Professor and established a small lab at UNE Biddeford Marine Science Center as Research Professor and extended his research on the American Lobster. During his tenure at UNE Joe started his microCT studies of lobster cuticle providing unprecedented detail on the structure of the cuticle and contributing to an approach to carrying out correlative microscopy that allows correlating multiple physical measurements on the same structures.

While at UNE Biddeford Joe established a research collaboration with Bryan Tarbox who was both Professor of Marine Science at SMCC and a lobster-man in Casco Bay. Joe has served several times as stern-man on trips tending Bryan's lobster trap study sites and collected early-stage shell diseased lobsters which were used in his initial microCT studies.