Richard Wolfenden

Last updated
Richard Wolfenden
Born (1935-05-17) May 17, 1935 (age 85)
Nationality United States
Alma mater Princeton University (A.B.), Oxford University, Rockefeller University (Ph.D.)
Known for Enzyme kinetics
Scientific career
Fields Biochemistry

Richard Vance Wolfenden (born May 17, 1935) is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of chemistry, biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [2] [3] He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002. [4] [5] His research involves the kinetics of enzymatic reactions, [2] and his laboratory has made significant contributions to the understanding of catalytic rate enhancements. [6]

Contents

Education

Wolfenden earned his A.B. in chemistry from Princeton University in 1956, after completing a senior thesis titled "Metabolism of Cobalt and Vitamin B12 in Rats." [7] He then received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in animal physiology from Exeter College, University of Oxford. [8] He earned his Ph.D. from the Rockefeller University in 1964 (then known as the Rockefeller Institute). [2]

Career

Wolfenden initially taught at Princeton University, but in 1970 he joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina as associate professor of biochemistry. He became full professor in 1973. [5] Wolfenden was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002. [9]

Related Research Articles

Christian de Duve Belgian biochemist, cytologist

Christian René Marie Joseph, Viscount de Duve was a Nobel Prize-winning English-born Belgian cytologist and biochemist. He made serendipitous discoveries of two cell organelles, peroxisome and lysosome, for which he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 with Albert Claude and George E. Palade. In addition to peroxisome and lysosome, he invented the scientific names such as autophagy, endocytosis, and exocytosis in a single occasion.

Fritz Albert Lipmann

Fritz Albert Lipmann was a German-American biochemist and a co-discoverer in 1945 of coenzyme A. For this, together with other research on coenzyme A, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1953.

Rockefeller University Research institute in New York City

The Rockefeller University is a private graduate university in New York City. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". Rockefeller is the oldest biomedical research institute in the United States. The 82-person faculty has 37 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 17 members of the National Academy of Medicine, seven Lasker Award recipients, and five Nobel laureates. As of October 2020, a total of 38 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with Rockefeller University.

Arthur Kornberg

Arthur Kornberg was an American biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for his discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)" together with Dr. Severo Ochoa of New York University. He was also awarded the Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry from the American Chemical Society in 1951, L.H.D. degree from Yeshiva University in 1962, as well as National Medal of Science in 1979. In 1991, Kornberg received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement and the Gairdner Foundation Award in 1995.

Britton Chance American academic and sailor

Britton Chance was the Eldridge Reeves Johnson University Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Biophysics, as well as Professor Emeritus of Physical Chemistry and Radiological Physics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Aziz Sancar Turkish biochemist and molecular biologist

Aziz Sancar is a Turkish molecular biologist specializing in DNA repair, cell cycle checkpoints, and circadian clock. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Tomas Lindahl and Paul L. Modrich for their mechanistic studies of DNA repair. He has made contributions on photolyase and nucleotide excision repair in bacteria that have changed his field.

Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford

The Department of Biochemistry of Oxford University is located in the Science Area in Oxford, England. It is one of the largest biochemistry departments in Europe. The Biochemistry Department is part of the University of Oxford's Medical Sciences Division, the largest of the University's four academic divisions, which has been ranked first in the world for biomedicine.

John Kuriyan American biochemist

John Kuriyan is Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Berkeley in the departments of Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) and Chemistry. He is also a Faculty Scientist in Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Joseph Stewart Fruton, born Joseph Fruchtgarten, was a Polish-American biochemist and historian of science. His most significant scientific work involved synthetic peptides and their interactions with proteases; with his wife Sofia Simmonds he also published an influential textbook, General Biochemistry. From 1970 until his death, Fruton worked extensively on the history of science, particularly the history of biochemistry and molecular biology.

Horace Albert "Nook" Barker was an American biochemist and microbiologist who studied the operation of biological and chemical processes in plants, humans and other animals, including using radioactive tracers to determine the role enzymes play in synthesizing sucrose. He was recognized with the National Medal of Science for his role in identifying an active form of Vitamin B12.

Henry A. Lardy was a biochemist and professor emeritus in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1958. Research in Lardy's laboratory centered on elucidating the mechanisms underlying metabolism.

Mary Ellen Jones was an American biochemist. She was notable for discovery of carbamoyl phosphate, a chemical substance that is key to the biosynthesis of arginine and urea, and for the biosynthesis of pyrimidine nucleotides. Jones became the first woman to hold a chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the first woman to become a department chair at the medical school. She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She was also president of the Association of Medical School Departments of Biochemistry, president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and president of the American Association of University Professors. The New York Times called her a "crucial researcher on DNA" and said that her studies laid the foundation for basic cancer research. She died of cancer on August 23, 1996.

Paul Gyorgy

Paul György (April 7, 1893 – March 1, 1976) was a Hungarian-born American biochemist, nutritionist, and pediatrician best known for his discovery of three B vitamins: riboflavin, B6, and biotin. Gyorgy was also well known for his research into the protective factors of human breast milk, particularly for his discoveries of Lactobacillus bifidus growth factor activity in human milk and its anti-staphylococcal properties. He was a recipient of the National Medal of Science in 1975 from President Gerald Ford.

Gordon G. Hammes is a distinguished service professor of biochemistry, emeritus, at Duke University, professor emeritus at Cornell University, and member of United States National Academy of Sciences. Hammes' research involves the study of enzyme mechanisms and enzyme regulation.

Rowena Green Matthews, born in 1938, is the G. Robert Greenberg Distinguished University professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on the role of organic cofactors as partners of enzymes catalyzing difficult biochemical reactions, especially folic acid and cobalamin. Among other honors, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2002 and the Institute of Medicine in 2004.

Minor Jesser Coon was an American biochemist and Victor V Vaughan Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is best known for his research on cytochrome P-450 and as the co-discoverer of HMG-CoA, along with Bimal Kumar Bachhawat. He died on September 5, 2018 from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.

Esmond Emerson Snell was an American biochemist who spent his career researching vitamins and nutritional requirements of bacteria and yeast. He is well known for his study of lactic acid-producing bacteria, developing microbiological assays for a number of key nutrients; the discovery of more than half of known vitamins has been attributed to the use of this work. He discovered several B vitamins, including folic acid, and characterized the biochemistry of vitamin B6.

Malcolm Daniel Lane was a biochemist who spent most of his career on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. Lane served as the head of the Department of Biological Chemistry from 1978 to 1997, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1987, and was named a University Distinguished Service Professor – the institution's highest academic title – in 2001. Lane's research focused on the biochemistry of lipids and lipid metabolism, and the resulting physiological mechanisms regulating adipogenesis and obesity.

Dr. Herbert Weissbach is an American biochemist/molecular biologist.

References

  1. Who's who in the South and Southwest. October 1984. ISBN   9780837908199.
  2. 1 2 3 "Richard Wolfenden Faculty Page". Department of Chemistry/UNC Chapel Hill. Retrieved 30 December 2009.
  3. "Richard Wolfenden, Biochemistry and Biophysics". The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. 2009. Retrieved 30 December 2009.
  4. Taylor, Edith (May 1, 2002). "National Academy of Sciences Elects New Members and Associates". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 30 December 2009.
  5. 1 2 Lynch, Brendan (2 September 2009). "Celebrated researcher Richard Wolfenden to explain how enzymes make life thrive". The University of Kansas. Retrieved 30 December 2009.
  6. "Enzyme importance reinforced". Scientist Live, Setform Limited. 2008. Retrieved 30 December 2009.
  7. Wolfenden, Richard Vance (1956). "Metabolism of Cobalt and Vitamin B12 in Rats".Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. "Celebrated researcher Richard Wolfenden to explain how enzymes make life thrive - KU News". archive.news.ku.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
  9. "Richard Vance Wolfenden". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2020-06-19.