Class
| • | 2. Biological Sciences | [X] |
| | 1 | Name: | Dr. David Bodian | | | Institution: | Johns Hopkins University | | | Year Elected: | 1973 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 209. Neurobiology | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1910 | | | Death Date: | 9/18/92 | | | | |
| 2 | Name: | Dr. H. G. Khorana | | | Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | | Year Elected: | 1973 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1922 | | | Death Date: | November 9, 2011 | | | | | | |
Har Gobind Khorana was awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Medicine, along with Robert W. Holley and Marshall W. Nirenberg, for describing the genetic code and how it operates in protein synthesis. The team discovered that RNAs with three repeating units produced two alternating amino acids, while RNAs with four repeating units produced only dipeptides and tripeptides. This led them to identify stop codons, and in turn to establish that the biological language common to all living organisms is spelled out in sets of three nucleotides for a specific amino acid. Born in India, Dr. Khorana earned his Ph.D. at Liverpool in 1948. He was the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Biology and Chemistry Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with which he had been associated since 1969. Previously he served as head of the British Columbia Research Council's Organic Chemical Group (1952-60), as visiting professor at Rockefeller University (1958-60), and as professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin (1960-68). The author of many research publications in scientific journals, Dr. Khorana has been honored with the Lasker Award (1968), the Horowitz Prize (1968), the National Medal of Science (1987), and membership in the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1973. Dr. Khorana died November 9, 2011, at the age of 89 in Concord, Massachusetts. | |
| 3 | Name: | Dr. Emil L. Smith | | | Institution: | University of California, Los Angeles | | | Year Elected: | 1973 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1911 | | | Death Date: | May 31, 2009 | | | | | | |
Emil L. Smith is Professor of Biological Chemistry Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has served on the faculty of the School of Medicine since 1963. One of the world's leading authorities on the amino acid sequences of proteins and on biochemical evolution, his research has dealt with photosynthesis; chlorophyll; physiology of the visual process; proteolytic enzymes; glycoproteins; cytochrome; histones; and glutamate dehydrogenases. An outstanding leader in biochemical research and a man of broad scientific interests, Dr. Smith earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1937. He subsequently worked as a Guggenheim Fellow at Cambridge and Yale and as a research associate at the Rockefeller Institute (1940-42) and as a biophysicist at E.R. Squibb & Company's Biological Laboratories (1942-46) before joining the faculty of the University of Utah (1946-63). From 1959-62 Dr. Smith also served as chairman of the United States National Committee on Biochemistry. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he is the author (with A. White, P. Handler and others) of Principles of Biochemistry, for seven editions (1954-83) one of the leading textbooks in the field. | |
| 4 | Name: | Dr. Helen Brooke Taussig | | | Year Elected: | 1973 | | | Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1898 | | | Death Date: | 5/20/86 | | | | |
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