The Gunther S. Stent Papers reflect the varied functions of Stent's life as a research scientist, teacher, mentor, administrator, editor, and author. His career spanned a period of profound changes in the life sciences, and his eclectic interests encompassed not only science, but history and philosophy as well. His papers richly document the process of scientific and scholarly collaboration in the developing field of molecular biology, and later in neurobiology. He was acquainted with virtually everyone in his field, and his papers include correspondence and manuscripts from many of the leading scientists of the 20th Century, including Werner Arber, Francis Crick, Max Delbrück, D. Carleton Gajdusek, Alfred Day Hershey, François Jacob, Niels Kaj Jerne, André Lwoff, S. E. Luria, Jacques Monod, and James D. Watson, to name only a few.

Gunther S. Stent was born in 1924 in Treptow, a suburb of Berlin, where his father owned one of the largest bronze statuary and light-fixture factories in Germany. After the Kristallnacht, he escaped from Germany, traveling first to England, and then to the United States. He graduated in 1942 from Hyde Park High School in Chicago. He received a B.S. in 1945, and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1948, both from the University of Illinois. He joined the University of California, Berkeley faculty as an Assistant Research Biochemist in 1953.

Number of containers: 65 cartons, 10 tubes, 3 oversize folders Linear feet: 92.5

Copyright has been assigned in part to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services.

Collection is open for research, with the following exception: Box 1 sealed until 2020.