American Philosophical Society
Member History

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201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry[X]
1Name:  Lord Richard Adrian
 Institution:  Cambridge & House of Lords
 Year Elected:  1987
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1927
 Death Date:  4/4/95
   
2Name:  Dr. K. Sune D. Bergström
 Institution:  Karolinska Institutet
 Year Elected:  1984
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1916
 Death Date:  August 15, 2004
   
3Name:  Sir Michael J. Berridge
 Institution:  The Babraham Institute; University of Cambridge
 Year Elected:  2007
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1938
 Death Date:  February 13, 2020
   
 
Michael John Berridge was born in 1938 in Gatooma, a small town in the middle of Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. He began his education at Jameson High School where he was fortunate in being taught biology by Pamela Bates who fostered his academic interests and encouraged him to pursue a scientific career. He enrolled in the University of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in Salisbury to read Zoology and Chemistry where he received his B.Sc. (1st Class Honours) in 1960. He then travelled to England to begin research on insect physiology with Sir Vincent Wigglesworth at the University of Cambridge and was awarded his Ph.D. in 1964. He than travelled to the United States to begin a period of post-doctoral study first at the University of Virginia and later at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. During his stay in Cleveland he began his interest in how cells communicate with each other and was fortunate to obtain valuable advice from Dr Ted Rall who a few years earlier had worked together with Earl Sutherland who received a Nobel Prize for his discovery of the second messenger cyclic AMP. In 1969 Berridge returned to Cambridge to take up an appointment at the AFRC Unit of Insect Neurophysiology and Pharmacology. He currently is an Emeritus Babraham Fellow at The Babraham Institute Laboratory of Molecular Signalling. Berridge is best known for his discovery of the second messenger inositol trisphosphate (IP3), which plays a universal role in regulating many cellular processes including cell growth and information processing in the nervous system. His studies on cell signalling began with his interest in trying to understand the control of fluid secretion by an insect salivary gland. His introduction and development of this simple model system paved the way for a number of significant observations which culminated in the major breakthrough of uncovering a new second messenger system responsible for regulating intracellular calcium signalling. A role for second messengers in controlling fluid secretion was first recognised when cyclic AMP was found to mimic the stimulatory action of 5-hydroxytryptamine. Subsequent studies revealed that calcium was also important and Berridge was one of the first to draw attention to the integrated action of the cyclic AMP and calcium messenger systems. He showed that signal calcium could be derived from both external and internal reservoirs. A major problem emerged as to how cells gained access to their internal stores of calcium. Berridge provided the first direct evidence to support Michell's hypothesis that the hydrolysis of inositol lipids played a role in calcium signalling. Interest in inositol phosphates began to intensify when Berridge developed a new approach of measuring their formation as a direct way to study receptor-mediated inositol lipid hydrolysis. Of particular significance, was his introduction of the lithium amplification technique to provide an exquisitely sensitive method for measuring inositol lipid turnover. His work on lithium provided new insights into how this drug controls manic-depressive illness. Using the lithium amplification method, Berridge demonstrated that hormones stimulated a rapid formation of IP3, which led him to propose that this metabolite might function as a second messenger. Such a messenger role was rapidly verified when IP3 was found to mobilize calcium when injected into cells. It is now apparent that the IP3/calcium signalling system regulates a wide range of cellular processes such as fertilization, secretion, metabolism, contraction, cell proliferation and information processing in the brain. This work has sparked a worldwide interest in the role of this signalling system in cell regulation. His most recent work has concentrated on the spatial and temporal aspects of calcium signalling. He was one of the first physiologists to provide evidence that the level of calcium might oscillate when cells are stimulated by a hormone. He also showed that oscillation frequency varied with agonist concentration, which led him to propose that the signalling system was frequency-modulated. Berridge's discovery of the IP3/calcium pathway provided an explanation of such oscillatory activity. His laboratory has been at the forefront of recent studies exploiting rapid confocal imaging techniques to characterize the elementary events of calcium signalling. This radically new understanding of how calcium signals are produced has provided new insights into both neural and cardiac cell signalling. Berridge became a Fellow of Trinity College in 1972 and was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1984. In 1999 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For his work on second messengers Berridge has received numerous awards and prizes, including The King Faisal International Prize in Science, The Louis Jeantet Prize in Medicine, The Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, The Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics, The Wolf Foundation Prize in Medicine and The Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine. In 1998 Berridge was knighted for his service to science.
 
4Name:  Dr. André A. Lwoff
 Year Elected:  1967
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1902
 Death Date:  9/30/94
   
5Name:  Professor Raymond A. Dwek
 Institution:  Institute of Biology; Glycobiology Institute, University of Oxford
 Year Elected:  2006
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1941
   
 
Raymond Dwek was born on November 10, 1941 in Manchester, England and studied at Manchester University, where he obtained his B.Sc. degree in 1963 and his M.Sc. degree in 1964. Dr. Dwek received his D.Phil. degree from Lincoln College, Oxford. He was awarded a D.Sc from Oxford University in 1985. Raymond Dwek's early research work (1963-73) was concerned with novel applications of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance to Physical, Inorganic and Biochemistry summarised in his book in 1973. He pioneered the application of magnetic resonance to antibody molecules. His subsequent work on the antibody molecule focused on the structural and functional roles of the conserved carbohydrates. This led to the concept that glycoproteins exist in many glycosylated variants, or glycoforms. In 1988, in a seminal review, he introduced the term 'Glycobiology' which entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1991. Early in his career, Dr. Dwek pioneered industrial-academic partnerships. In 1982, he secured a grant with Monsanto Company, the first major interaction Oxford University had with an industrial company in its 800 year history. As a result, Dr. Dwek and his colleagues were able to develop technology for studying sugar attached to proteins. This led to opportunities for drug discovery which eventually led to worldwide approval of a drug for Gaucher Disease and new approaches for anti-viral agents for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B and C viral infection and HIV. In 1988, he founded Oxford GlycoSciences, Oxford University's first ever spin-off company, using the technology emerging from his laboratory. In 1991 he founded the Glycobiology Institute at Oxford University of which he became Director. He also was Head of the Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University from 2000-2007 and Institute Professor at the Scripps Research Institute in 2008. He was elected in 2008 to a three year term as President of the Institute of Biology. Dr. Dwek has served on a number of institutional and corporate boards including United Therapeutics, USA. His scientific positions include Personal Special Advisor on Biotechnology to the President of Ben Gurion University, Israel where he has been involved in helping to build a National Institute of Biotechnology in the Negev. In 2007 he was appointed Chair of Technology and Society in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. His honors and awards include the Seventh Wellcome Trust Award for Research in Biochemistry Related to Medicine in 1994, the First Scientific Leadership Award from the Hepatitis B Foundation in 1997, the Institute of Biology's Huxley Medal in 2007 and the Romanian Order of Merit with rank of commander in 2000 for his major contribution to Romanian-British co-operation in biochemistry and molecular biology. He has received honorary doctorates from The Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium and Ben Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, Israel, The Scripps Institute, La Jolla, USA and Cluj University, Romania. He is an Honorary Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and of the Royal Institute of Physicians, London. Dr. Dwek was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1998 for his "fundamental work in glycobiology, [and] for technical development and research allowing knowledge of oligosaccharides to be placed beside that of proteins and DNA." He is a Fellow of EMBO (The European Molecular Biology Organisation). The author of three books, over 500 scientific articles, and a large number of editorials for both scientific and general audiences, Dr. Dwek is a co-inventor on over 70 patents.
 
6Name:  Dr. Marianne Grunberg-Manago
 Institution:  Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique
 Year Elected:  1992
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1921
 Death Date:  January 4, 2013
   
 
French biologist Marianne Grunberg-Manago had a profound effect on the development of molecular biology. She discovered polynucleotide phosphorylase, the first enzyme capable of synthesizing macromolecules with nucleic acid-like structures, which was subsequently used to elucidate the genetic code. In extending this work, Dr. Grunberg-Manago contributed to the understanding of the translation of the genetic code in the synthesis of protein, in particular as pertains to the role of initiation factors and the dynamic role of ribosomes. She opened a new field of investigation concerning the mechanisms responsible for the initiation of protein synthesis, eludicating the role of several essential protein factors involved in selection of initiation codons. Not only was her research of international stature, but her activities were international in scope as president of the International Union of Biochemistry, president of the French delegation of the French-Soviet Exchanges, a member of the A.S.I. committee of NATO and a Fogarty scholar at the National Institutes of Health, to name a few. Dr. Grunberg-Manago was the first woman to direct the International Union of Biochemistry and was a member of the French Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1992. She had been Emeritus Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research at the time of her death on January 4, 2013, at age 91.
 
7Name:  Dr. Jan-Ake Gustafsson
 Institution:  Karolinska Institute; University of Houston
 Year Elected:  2008
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1943
   
 
Jan-Åke Gustafsson, M.D., Ph.D., has played a pivotal role in discoveries of how nuclear receptors in the cell mediate actions of hormones and nutrients to regulate gene expression. Dr. Gustafsson is Professor of Medical Nutrition and Chairman of the Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Novum, Karolinska University Hospital at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Gustafsson first described the three-domain structure of nuclear receptors, defined the function of these domains, and determined how the DNA-binding mechanism mediates nuclear receptor activities in the cell. He also was the first to discover that fatty acids are natural activators of the peroxisome proliferator activated nuclear receptor (PPAR), thus stimulating the investigation of the role of PPARs in lipid metabolism. Furthermore, Dr. Gustafsson discovered a second type of estrogen receptor (ER?) as well as a nuclear receptor that is important in cholesterol metabolism (LXR?). Dr. Gustafsson received his Bachelor of Medicine degree in 1964, his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1968 and his M.D. degree in 1971, all from the Karolinska Institute. He was named a professor of chemistry at the Institute in 1976, and to his current posts in 1979. In 1987, he founded KaroBio AB, a biotechnology company based at the Karolinska Institute, initially supported by pension and government funds. Career/Academic Appointments: 1964 Bachelor of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm 1971 Associate Professor in Chemistry, Karolinska Institutet 1976 Professor of Chemistry, Karolinska Institutet 1978 Professor of Chemistry, University of Gothenburg 1979 Professor of Medical Nutrition and Chairman of the Dept of Medical Nutrition, Huddinge University Hospital, Karolinska Institutet 2006-present Professor of Medical Nutrition and Chairman of the Dept of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet Among the honors he has received during his career are: The Svedberg Prize in chemistry in 1982, the Fernström Prize of the Karolinska Institute in 1983, the Anders Jahre Prize in 1992, the Gregory Pincus Medal and Award of the Worcester Foundation in 1994, the Söderberg Prize in Medicine in 1998, the European Medal of the British Society for Endocrinology in 2000, the Lorenzini Gold Medal in 2001, the Fred Conrad Koch Award from the Endocrine Society in the U.S. in 2002, the Bristol-Meyers Squibb/Mead Johnson Award for Nutrition Research in 2004, the Geoffrey Harris Prize in 2009, the Award of Merit of the Princess Takamatsu Cancer Research Fund in 2009, the Grand Nordic Fernstrom Prize of the University of Lund in 2009, and the Grand Silver Medal of the Karolinska Institutet in 2011. Dr. Gustafsson was elected to the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1997, to the Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 1998, became a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and a foreign honorary member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2002. In 2002 he was Chairman of the Nobel Assemly of the Karolinska Institutet. Jan-Åke Gustafsson was elected an international member of the American Philosophical Society in 2008.
 
8Name:  Dr. Avram Hershko
 Institution:  Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
 Year Elected:  2005
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1937
   
 
Avram Hershko was born in 1937 in Karcag, Hungary and emigrated with his family to Israel in 1950. He gained his M.D. (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) from the Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical School of Jerusalem, a period which included service as a physician in the Israel Defence Forces (1965-67). After a post-doctoral fellowship with Gordon Tomkins at the University of San Francisco (1969-72), he joined the faculty of the Haifa Technion, becoming professor in 1980. He is now Distinguished Professor in the Unit of Biochemistry in the B. Rappaport Faculty of Medicine of the Technion. His main research interests concern the mechanisms by which cellular proteins are degraded, a formerly neglected field of study. Dr. Hershko and his colleagues showed that cellular proteins are degraded by a highly selective proteolytic system. This system tags proteins for destruction by linkage to a protein called ubiquitin, which had previously been identified in many tissues, as the name suggests, but whose function was previously unknown. Subsequent work in Dr. Hershko's and many other laboratories has shown that the ubiquitin system has a vital role in controlling a wide range of cellular processes, such as the regulation of cell division, signal transduction and DNA repair. Abnormalities in the ubiquitin system result in diseases such as certain types of cancer. The full range of functions of the ubiquitin system in health and disease has still to be elucidated. Dr. Hershko was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2004) jointly with his former Ph.D. student Aaron Ciechanover and their colleague Irwin Rose. His many honors include the Israel Prize for Biochemistry (1994), the Gardner Award (1999), the Lasker Prize for Basic Medical Research (2000), the Wolf Prize for Medicine (2001) and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Award (2001). Dr. Hershko is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences (2000) and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (2003).
 
9Name:  Professor François Jacob
 Institution:  Collège de France & Institut Pasteur
 Year Elected:  1969
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1920
 Death Date:  April 19, 2013
   
 
French geneticist François Jacob, in close association with Jacques Monod, conducted groundbreaking research on genetic replication, transcription and translation in bacteria. They originated the idea that control of enzyme levels in all cells happens through feedback on transcription, and also proposed the existence of an RNA messenger, a partial copy of the gene substance deoxyribonucleic acid that carries genetic information to other parts of the cell. For his work concerning regulatory activities in bacteria, Dr. Jacob, together with Monod and Andres Lwoff, was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine. After earning his D. Sci. from Faculty of Science, Paris in 1954, Dr. Jacob served as research assistant at the Pasteur Institute. In 1960 he became head of the department of cellular genetics there, and in 1965 he was named Professor of Cellular Genetics at the Collège de France. He was Professor Emeritus at both institutions at the time of his death on April 19 at the age of 92 in Paris. Dr. Jacob had been awarded several French scientific prizes, including the Charles Leopold Mayer Prize of the Academy of Sciences (1962), and he was foreign member of both the Academie Royale des Lettres et Sciences du Danemark (1962) and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1964). He was elected a member of the Academie Française in 1996. Dr. Jacob is also the author of an autobiography, The Statue Within, which was published in France in 1987 and translated into English a year later. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1969.
 
10Name:  Dr. Ephraim Katchalski-Katzir
 Institution:  Weizmann Institute of Science
 Year Elected:  1976
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1916
 Death Date:  May 30, 2009
   
 
Professor Ephraim Katzir - eminent scientist and the fourth President of the State of Israel - was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1916 as Ephraim Katchalski (he Hebracized his name upon becoming President). His family immigrated to British-ruled Palestine when he was six years old. He grew up in Jerusalem and began studying biology at the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, where he did both his undergraduate and graduate work, receiving his Ph.D. in 1941. Like other students at the time, Ephraim Katzir was a member of the Haganah, the underground Jewish defense organization, and played a role in the creation of a military research and development unit developing explosives, propellants and more. During the War of Independence, he was appointed head of the IDF science corps. Professor Katzir was one of the founding scientists of the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1949, an institution with which he has been associated throughout his professional career, both before and after serving as President. As founder and head of the Institute's Biophysics Department, Katzir was involved in seminal work on synthetic protein models that contributed significantly to the understanding of biology, chemistry and physics, and deepened understanding of the genetic code and of immune responses. His pioneering work on immobilized enzymes used in oral antibiotics, for which he received the Japan Prize in 1985, has revolutionized a number of industries and branches of medical research. Three landmark events "defined" Katzir's presidency. His term in office began on May 24, 1973, just over four months prior to the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War and exactly a year after the death of his brother, Professor Aharon Katzir, who was murdered in the May 1972 terrorist attack at Ben-Gurion Airport. A third momentous event - the visit of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in Jerusalem in November 1977 - took place near the end of his term as President. During his presidency, Katzir placed special emphasis on education and science as a fulcrum to economic prosperity. As a former chief scientist of the IDF (1966-68), he made numerous tours of army units and military research facilities, as well as of industrial complexes and educational facilities, including those in development towns. Using his personal standing and the prestige of his office, he galvanized academics to address the danger of assimilation in Diaspora communities by pressing for the establishment of departments of Jewish studies at colleges and universities abroad - deemed the "last chance" to expose Jewish youth in the Diaspora to their heritage and Jewish identity. In 1966 he accepted the invitation of Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to head a committee charged with advising the government on its future activities in science and technology. The result was the appointment, in several government ministries, of Chief Scientists charged with promoting applied research in governmental institutions, institutes of higher education and industry, leading to greater cooperation between the three sectors. It also led to a dramatic increase in government spending on applied research, causing a surge in innovative science-based activities, especially in industry and agriculture. Throughout his five years in office, President Katzir emphasized science and higher education, but also reached out to numerous individual families in distress and devoted much time to promoting volunteerism as an avenue for narrowing educational and socio-economic gaps. During his term of office, the Presidential Award for Volunteerism was inaugurated - an annual prize granted in recognition of twelve individuals who distinguished themselves in volunteer work. Ephraim Katzir stepped down from the Presidency in May 1978 to return to scientific research. Since returning to the Weizmann Institute, Professor Katzir has given priority to the encouragement of biotechnological research in Israel and played a part in the foundation of a Department of Biotechnology at Tel Aviv University. Convinced that Israel needs to develop a highly-skilled workforce for its high-tech sector, Ephraim Katzir also serves as World President of ORT - a network of vocational schools.
 
11Name:  Dr. Alexander S. Spirin
 Institution:  Moscow State University & Russian Academy of Sciences
 Year Elected:  1997
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1931
 Death Date:  December 30, 2020
   
 
Alexander S. Spirin was a world-class Russian scientist who has contributed much that is ingenious and original to our understanding of the structure and function of ribosomes - the intricate molecular machines that synthesize the proteins of cells. He has provided fascinating insight into the interplay between various types of ribonucleic acids and proteins that make up these machines. He has done this by taking ribosomes apart and then sucessfully reassembling them: a major achievement. Currently Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Moscow State University and the Director of the Institute of Protein Research at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Spirin has created a body of work that is important, elegant and internationally recognized. He died on December 30, 2021.
 
12Name:  Dr. Rudolf K. Thauer
 Institution:  Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology; Philipps University Marburg
 Year Elected:  2018
 Class:  2. Biological Sciences
 Subdivision:  201. Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
 Residency:  International
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1939
   
 
Born 1939 in Frankfurt, Germany, I went to school in Wetter, Landshut, Philadelphia, USA (1947-1951) and Bad Nauheim and then studied Medicine and Biochemistry at the Universities of Frankfurt, Tubingen and Freiburg, where I ended my studies 1968 with a PhD in Biochemistry and a Thesis on the "Energy Metabolism of Clostridium kluyveri." Ever since then my scientific interest remained focused on how strictly anaerobic microorganisms conserve energy. Discoveries made were amongst others that carbon monoxide is an intermediate in autotrophic CO2 fixation via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway and that the trace element nickel is required by many anaerobes as cofactor of carbon monoxide dehydrogenase, hydrogenases and methyl-coenzyme M reductase. The latter enzyme has a nickel tetrapyrrole as prosthetic group and catalyzes both methane formation and methane oxidation in Archaea. After a short postdoc in 1971 with Harland Wood at Case Western University Chicago, I was appointed in 1972 Associate Professor for Biochemistry at the Ruhr University in Bochum, in 1976 Full Professor for Microbiology at the Philipps University Marburg and in 1991 Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg. After my retirement as Director at the end of 2007 I continued research at the Max Planck Institute that led together with Wolfgang Buckel to the discovery of flavin-based electron bifurcation that changed our understanding how most anaerobes conserve energy.
 
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