William Conan Davis | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | Waycross, Georgia, U.S. | August 22, 1926
Died | March 16, 2022 95) [1] | (aged
Other names | William C. Davis The Knife Juggling Pro |
Alma mater | |
Spouse | Ocia Davis (died) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Food chemistry |
Institutions | St. Philip's College |
Doctoral advisor | Duane Le Tourneau [2] |
External videos | |
---|---|
![]() | |
![]() | |
![]() |
William Conan Davis (August 22, 1926 - March 16, 2022) was a professor emeritus and was chair of natural sciences at St. Philip's College in San Antonio, Texas. The William C. Davis Science Building is named in his honor.
He is best known for his research in food chemistry. He discovered arabinogalactan and used it to create instant mashed potatoes. His discoveries also improved potato chips and soft serve ice cream. He developed an organic glue for use in particle board. More recently, he co-developed the formula for Dasani water.
In addition to his scientific work, he was a Lutheran lay minister, served during the Korean War, and received the Purple Heart. [3]
William Conan Davis was born on August 22, 1926, in Waycross, Georgia to Kince Charles Davis and his wife Laura Jane (née Cooper; July 9, 1898 – June 6, 2004). Kince Davis' family self-identified as being of Ethiopian Jewish descent, and he read Hebrew but not English. [4] Kince Davis was employed as a railway construction engineer and crew boss, a position that brought him threats from the Ku Klux Klan. [5] He later started a herbal medicine business, the only source of medical care accessible to many black people in Georgia. [6] William Davis spent time during the summers with his maternal grandfather Jonnas Franklin, who identified as a Sioux Indian and who farmed and hunted near the Okefenokee Swamp. [7]
William Davis attended Magnolia Grammar School and Dasher High School in Valdosta, Georgia. He received a high school diploma from Dasher in 1944. [4] His family was active in civil rights and supportive of their children's education. On one occasion Kince Davis drove his sons William and Kenneth to Tuskegee Institute (a distance of 300 miles in a Tin Lizzie) to attend a workshop with George Washington Carver and Henry Ford. This experience fueled William's interest in becoming a chemist. [3]
Dasher High School did not teach at a college preparatory level, leaving William at a disadvantage in science and mathematics. To prepare him for college, William's family sent him to New York City in 1944. He lived with his older brother, actor and civil rights activist Ossie Davis. He attended Dwight High School, taking preparatory classes in science and graduating in 1945. William Davis briefly attended the City College of New York, but was advised to transfer to Talladega College in Alabama where he could get more individual support in calculus. [4]
Davis was enrolled in the U.S. Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps. During his first year at Talladega, he was drafted to serve in the Korean War. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He served in Germany and was awarded a Purple Heart in 1953. [4]
On his return, Davis completed his B.S. degree in chemistry at Talladega College, graduating in 1956. He was one of three students chosen for a George Washington Carver research fellowship to attend Tuskegee Institute in 1956. [8] At the time, it was almost impossible for a black scientist to train for a professional career in research in the United States. Even at Tuskegee, the usual career track was to train as a teacher, with a specialization in one's area of interest. [9] [10] Davis was determined to do research. He worked with Clarence T. Mason of Tuskegee and studied the hydrolysis rate of compounds in jet fuel. This research enabled him to meet Wernher von Braun of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. Davis received his Master of Science degree in organic chemistry from Tuskegee in 1958. [4]
It was extremely difficult for a black student to find support for a Ph.D. program in research. [9] The University of Idaho was the only university willing to accept Davis as a research-track graduate student. [8] Davis and his wife Ocia moved to Moscow, Idaho. Perhaps not surprisingly, given this location, his thesis research involved potatoes. Davis studied the process of sloughing, by which plant materials break down. This has important applications in food chemistry. Soup manufacturers want potatoes that tend to stay firm, not sloughing. Makers of mashed potatoes want potato flakes to break down rapidly and reform with a uniform, soft consistency. [8]
Meanwhile, the Industrial Research department at nearby Washington State University advertised for summer researchers to study the buildup of particles on saw blades in lumber mills. Davis applied and was able to identify the source of the problem. He isolated and extracted a dry, crystal-like powder, arabinogalactan, that produced a sticky paste when water was added to it. [8] This water-soluble polysaccharide is found in Western Larch trees ( Larix occidentalis ) and other plants and is believed to have health benefits. [11] [8] At the time, no one had any idea of how to make use of the substance Davis had identified. [8]
Back at the University of Idaho, Davis studied potato chips and what caused them to blister when fried. He was able to isolate the substance that caused the blistering, but when it was removed from the potatoes they disintegrated. [8] Frustrated by the apparent stalemate in both lines of research, Davis tried adding arabinogalactans to his potato mixtures. [9] The water was absorbed, and the potatoes fluffed up. Davis' approach improved the sloughing properties of the potatoes and created instant mashed potatoes with a more desirable texture and consistency. [9] [4] [8]
While completing his doctorate, Davis worked with scientists at Washington State University in a variety of fields, including clinical research with Mark Adams. [4] Davis did further research into the extraction of arabinogalactan from larch trees. He identified a sugar that makes frozen desserts smoother and is used to make soft-serve ice cream. [4] [3] He also helped to discover a wood sugar that is used in industrial glue to make compressed wood. [10] These discoveries were not patented, and most were further developed by others. [8]
Davis received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Idaho in 1965. [4] His Ph.D. thesis was A Study of Sloughing in the Potato Tuber (1965). [2] He was the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Idaho. [3]
After graduation, Davis accepted a position as a researcher with the Division of Industrial Research at Washington State University, researching antigens for hay fever. [9]
Davis worked as a post-doctoral fellow with Rosalyn Yalow at the Bronx Veteran's Affairs Hospital, where he learned radioimmunoassay techniques for use with diabetic patients. [4] [12] [13] Using his knowledge of radioimmunoassay techniques Davis developed standardized tests for the detection of thyroxin in the blood stream. [3] He also developed standardized blood tests for insulin and growth hormones. [14]
Davis was recruited as a health physicist and became head of the radioactivity department at United Medical Laboratories in Portland, Oregon. [15] Following certification as a medial technologist, Davis became director of the laboratory. [9] He spent nearly fifteen years as Director of United Medical Laboratories. [16]
[At United Medical Laboratories] we provided analyses for doctors all over the world, and devised methods for reducing the time and cost of conducting clinical assays to develop detect concentrations of hormones and steroids in the blood such as aldosterone, estrogen, and testosterone ... We made exotic procedures routine and brought their price down. Using autoanalyzers when they had just come out, we could perform tests more quickly than they could be done locally. [9]
Concerned about the lack of medical facilities available to African Americans in the Portland area, Davis worked with Kent Ford of the Portland Black Panther Party and others to establish the Fred Hampton Memorial Clinic in 1970. The clinic offered free medical services to both blacks and whites in the Albina neighborhood. Davis was one of the few black professionals to volunteer at the clinic: its doctors were predominantly white. He was strongly involved in its sickle-cell anemia initiatives. The clinic emphasized screening, education and counseling about the genetic disorder which disproportionately affects African Americans. [17] In 1972, Davis helped put on the Black Community Survival Conference, a protest against the expansion of the Emanuel Hospital. The expansion was planned without community input and largely destroyed the commercial center of a historically black neighborhood. [18] [19]
From 1974 to 1975, Davis was a visiting scientist at the George Hyman Research Institute in Washington, D.C. [4] [20] From 1979 to 1982, Davis was a research associate in Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. [4] He worked with Maharaj K. Ticku to study the effects of picrotoxin, benzodiazepines, pentobarbital, ethanol, and other psychoactive substances on receptor binding sites. [21] [22] [23] [24]
In 1983, Davis was hired as an instructor in the chemistry department at St. Philip's College, giving him more opportunity for teaching as well as research. [10] He became a full professor of chemistry in 1995. He became the chair of the Natural Sciences Department in 1996. [25] He was also the director of Renewable Energy at St. Philip's College. [4]
I tell my students to be curious about everything — and ask, 'How can I improve this? How can I be of service?'
— William C. Davis [9]
While at St. Philip's College, one of Davis' focuses of study was water. Davis worked with United Beverage company to study the behavioral properties of Penta Water, which he nicknamed "kinetic water". The company promoted their product as having uniquely distinct chemical properties due to its purification process. Davis studied characteristics such as boiling point, pH, polarity and surface tension. [4] [26] With Lanier Byrd, Davis co-created the formula that gives a characteristic taste to Dasani water, [10] [27] a product of The Coca-Cola Company. [26] In addition to hydrology, Davis was interested in recombinant DNA and fuel cell technologies for renewable energy. [28]
Davis retired in 2009, becoming a professor emeritus of St. Philip's College. At that time, it was decided to rename the natural sciences building in his honor to acknowledge his contributions. Funds were raised to renovate the building, and it was reopened and dedicated as the William C. Davis Science Building in 2012. [29] [30] [3] [28] A portrait of William Davis, commissioned from Howard Rhoder, hangs in the science building. [31]
'Observe!' I have instructed my students to do thousands of times. We can take two or more existing things, analyze them for what they are, and then synthesize something entirely new that did not exist before. This is the heartbeat of scientific research and discovery.
— William Conan Davis [32]
Davis was also active in preserving the history of science. He helped to establish the Ernest Stevenson Collection of scientific books and artifacts, to be housed at the Sutton Learning Center at St. Philip's College. [10] : 53 Before his death, he was working on his memoirs with the support of historian Jeanette Nyda Mendelssohn Passty. [10]
George Washington Carver was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century.
The Tuskegee Airmen was a group of primarily African American military pilots and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). The name also applies to the navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, instructors, crew chiefs, nurses, cooks, and other support personnel. The Tuskegee airmen received praise for their excellent combat record earned while protecting American bombers from enemy fighters. The group was awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations.
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was a study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service (PHS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a group of nearly 400 African American men with syphilis. The purpose of the study was to observe the effects of the disease when untreated, though by the end of the study medical advancements meant it was entirely treatable. The men were not informed of the nature of the experiment, and more than 100 died as a result.
Edward Calvin Kendall was an American biochemist. In 1950, Kendall was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine along with Swiss chemist Tadeusz Reichstein and Mayo Clinic physician Philip S. Hench, for their work with the hormones of the adrenal glands. Kendall not only researched the adrenal glands, he also isolated thyroxine, a hormone of the thyroid gland and worked with the team that crystallized glutathione and identified its chemical structure.
Philip Showalter Hench was an American physician. Hench, along with his Mayo Clinic co-worker Edward Calvin Kendall and Swiss chemist Tadeus Reichstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1950 for the discovery of the hormone cortisone, and its application for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. The Nobel Committee bestowed the award for the trio's "discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects."
Tuskegee University is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama, United States. It was founded on July 4, 1881 by the Alabama Legislature.
Sir Walter Norman Haworth FRS was a British chemist best known for his groundbreaking work on ascorbic acid while working at the University of Birmingham. He received the 1937 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C". The prize was shared with Swiss chemist Paul Karrer for his work on other vitamins.
Adinazolam is a tranquilizer of the triazolobenzodiazepine (TBZD) class, which are benzodiazepines (BZDs) fused with a triazole ring. It possesses anxiolytic, anticonvulsant, sedative, and antidepressant properties. Adinazolam was developed by Jackson B. Hester, who was seeking to enhance the antidepressant properties of alprazolam, which he also developed. Adinazolam was never FDA approved and never made available to the public market; however, it has been sold as a designer drug.
Fred David Gray is an American civil rights attorney, preacher, activist, and state legislator from Alabama. He handled many prominent civil rights cases, such as Browder v. Gayle, and was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1970, along with Thomas Reed, both from Tuskegee. They were the first black state legislators in Alabama in the 20th century. He served as the president of the National Bar Association in 1985, and in 2001 was elected as the first African-American President of the Alabama State Bar.
Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) is a consortium of American universities headquartered in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with offices in Arvada, Colorado and Cincinnati, Ohio and staff at other locations across the country.
Henry Ransom Cecil McBay was an American chemist and teacher. McBay won numerous awards for his teaching and mentoring, including the American Chemical Society Award. McBay also co-founded the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE).
St. Elmo Brady was an American chemist who was the first African American to obtain a Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States. He received his doctorate at the University of Illinois in 1916.
Margaret Ellen Mayo Tolbert is a biochemist who worked as a professor and director of the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee University, and was an administrative chemist at British Petroleum. From 1996 to 2002 she served as director of the New Brunswick Laboratory, becoming the first African American and the first woman in charge of a Department of Energy lab.
Warren Elliot Henry was an American physicist, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his work in the fields of magnetism and superconductivity. He made significant contributions to the advancement of science and technology and education, training and mentoring several generations of physicists.
Benjamin Guy Davis is a British chemist who is Professor of Chemical biology in the Department of Pharmacology and a member of the Faculty in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. He holds the role of Science Director for Next Generation Chemistry (2019-2024) and Deputy Director (2020-) at the Rosalind Franklin Institute.
Sir David Klenerman is a British biophysical chemist and a professor of biophysical chemistry at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.
Walter A. Hill is an American scientist who is Professor and Dean of the College of Agriculture, Environment and Nutrition Sciences at Tuskegee University. In 2016 he was inducted into the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hall of Fame.
Granville C. Coggs was an American medical doctor, radiologist, U.S. Army Air Force/U.S. Air Force/U.S. Air Force Reserves officer, and trained bombardier pilot with the 477th Bombardment Group attached to the famed Tuskegee Airmen. He was one of the 1007 documented Tuskegee Airmen Pilots.
George Levi Knox II was a U.S. Army Air Force/U.S. Air Force officer, combat fighter pilot and Adjutant with the all-African American 332nd Fighter Group's 100th Fighter Squadron, best known as the Tuskegee Airmen. One of the 1,007 documented Tuskegee Airmen Pilots, he was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen's third-ever aviation cadet class, and one of the first twelve African Americans to become combat fighter pilots. He was the second Indiana native to graduate from the Tuskegee Advanced Flying School (TAFS).
Luke Joseph Weathers, Jr., was a U.S. Army Air Force officer, historic African American air traffic controller and prolific World War II combat fighter pilot with the prodigious 332nd Fighter Group's 302nd Fighter Squadron, best known as the Tuskegee Airmen, "Red Tails," or "Schwartze Vogelmenschen" among enemy German pilots. Weathers earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for defending and escorting a damaged U.S. Army Air Corps B-24 Liberator bomber against eight Messerschmitt Bf 109s on November 16, 1944, shooting down two Bf 109s.
DAVIS, WILLIAM CONAN, Head Radioactivity, Health Physicist, Assoc. Bio-Chemist, United Medical Laboratories, Inc., 6060 NE, ll2th Ave., Portland, Oregon