Hans Thacher Clarke

Hans Thacher Clarke (born December 27, 1887 in Harrow , England , † October 21, 1972 in Boston , United States ) was a British-American biochemist .

Clarke studied chemistry at University College London with William Ramsay , J. Norman Collie and Samuel Smiles with a bachelor's degree in 1908. He then continued his research there and was from 1911 on a scholarship (1851 Exhibition Scholarship) with Emil Fischer in Berlin and with AW Stewart at Queen's University Belfast . On his return in 1913 he received a D.Sc. of the University of London. When the First World War broke out in 1914, he worked on the basis of old contacts (his father was a Kodak representative in Europe and a friend of George Eastman ) for Eastman Kodak in Rochester (New York) , where he was supposed to find replacements for the chemicals from Germany that were used after the outbreak of war failed. There were chemical engineers there, but among them he was the only organic chemist. Clarke was with Eastman Kodak until 1928 (which he continued to advise until 1969) when he became Professor of Biological Chemistry at Columbia University's Medical School . During the Second World War he supported the admission of Jewish scientists who fled from Europe to the faculty, as Assistant Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (from 1944) coordinated the production of penicillin in the USA during the Second World War and the post-war years and carried out rigorous efforts Qualification claims for graduate students. At Columbia University, however, his research was increasingly in favor of administrative tasks. In 1951/52 he was a science attaché at the US embassy in London, where he had close contacts with Robert Robinson , with whom he published a book on penicillin as early as 1949. In 1956 he retired from Columbia University and went to Yale University , where he did research for eight years. He then worked for the Children's Cancer Relief Foundation in Boston for another seven years.

He is known for the Eschweiler-Clarke methylation .

In 1942 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences and since 1943 he was a member of the American Philosophical Society (which also received his scientific estate). In 1965 he was accepted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . 1924/25 he was chairman of the organic chemistry section of the American Chemical Society (and 1921 the Rochester section and 1946 the New York section) and 1947 President of the American Society of Biological Chemists . From 1921 to 1932 he was co-editor of Organic Synthesis and 1937 to 1951 of the Journal of Biological Chemistry . From 1928 to 1938 he was Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society .

As a hobby he played the clarinet. He was the brother of the composer and violist Rebecca Clarke .

Web links

• Hubert Bradford Vickery, Biographical Memoirs National Academy of Sciences
• Literature by and about Hans Thacher Clarke in the bibliographic database WorldCat

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dr. Hans Thacker Clarke Dies; Biochemist at Columbia Was 84 Obituary in The New York Times , accessed October 13, 2019