Pauling Steps Down as Head of Science Institute He Founded

Two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling announced Wednesday that he is stepping down as chairman of the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine, an organization he founded 20 years ago.

“It was getting to be sort of nuisance to me to handle the administrative problems,” said Pauling, who is 91.

Pauling, who has published more than 1,000 papers and books since 1923, has been a staunch defender of the strength of Vitamin C in fighting cardiovascular disease and cancer.

With the administrative burden lifted, Pauling said, he will focus on his Vitamin C and nuclear physics research. He said he still publishes 12 to 15 papers a year.

“I seem to have more scientific interests than ever before. I have so many ideas, you know, I’m sort of an ideas man,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in Big Sur.

“I’m looking forward to writing a science paper and working on several books,” he said.

Pauling won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for unraveling the mysteries of chemical bonds in molecules. And in 1962, he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his effort to ban atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

In May, he told the Associated Press he was recovering from prostate cancer. He said he continues to take huge doses of Vitamin C, 18,000 milligrams a day, or three times the recommended daily requirement.

Pauling will become research director at the Palo Alto-based institute while his eldest son, Linus Pauling, Jr., is scheduled to take over as chairman.