Britton chance

Britton Chance (1965)

Britton Chance (born July 24, 1913 in Wilkes-Barre , Pennsylvania , † November 16, 2010 in Philadelphia ) was an American biochemist and biophysicist . He is also a gold medalist in sailing at the 1952 Summer Olympics .

Chance grew up in Haverford and invented a new automatic ship control system as a teenager, which was further developed by General Electric . He studied chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania , where he received his bachelor's degree in 1935, his master's degree in 1936 and his doctorate in physical chemistry in 1940 . In 1942 he received a second doctorate in biology and physiology from Cambridge University . During World War II he worked at MIT Radiation Laboratories on radar and bomb sights (for which he received the Certificate of Merit in 1950). After the Second World War he spent several years in Sweden at the Nobel Institute and in Cambridge. In 1952 he received a D.Sc. in Cambridge. He stayed at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was Professor of Biophysics and Director of the Johnson Foundation from 1949. In 1964 he became ER Johnson Professor of Biophysics and Physical Biochemistry (later renamed Biochemistry and Biophysics), Eldridge Reeves Johnson Professor of Biophysics, Physical Chemistry and Radiological Physics and 1977 University Professor. In the 1990s he was director of the Institute for Biophysics and Biomedical Research and in 1998 he became president of the Medical Diagnostic Research Foundation.

Chance studied the structure and function of enzymes . While still a student, he developed a stopped-flow apparatus for studying enzyme reactions, which is still used today. In doing so, he demonstrated the existence of the enzyme-substrate complex in Cambridge. He demonstrated that the electron transfer, which is important for many biological processes (such as photosynthesis), was based on quantum mechanical tunnels. Later he dealt with biomedical optics. For example, he used near-infrared techniques to diagnose breast cancer in the 1990s and pioneered the use of NMR in medicine in the 1980s . He invented a dual wavelength spectrophotometer and contributed to the development of glucose meters.

In 1950, Chance received the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry . In 1970 he won the HP Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics and in 1972 a Gairdner Foundation International Award . He received honorary doctorates in Buenos Aires, Rome ( Tor Vergata ), Düsseldorf, Copenhagen, at the Karolinska Institute , the University of Pennsylvania, Medical College of Ohio, Semmelweis University in Budapest, Helsinki and at the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. He has received the Franklin Medal from the Franklin Institute and the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the American Philosophical Society , of which he was Vice President, and the Christopher Columbus Discovery Award in Biomedical Research from the National Institutes of Health . The Stellar-Chance Laboratories at the University of Pennsylvania were partially named after him in 1995.

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1954) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1955). In 1968 he became a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences , in 1970 he was elected a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and in 1971 a member of the Leopoldina . In 1974 he received the National Medal of Science . Also since 1974 he was "External Scientific Member" of the then Max Planck Institute for Nutritional Physiology and its successor institute. He was a fellow of the American Physical Society and the SPIE (International Society for Optical Engineering), which named a prize in biomedical optics after him. The International Society for Oxygen Transport in Tissue (ISOTT) also named an award after him.

In 1952 he won a gold medal in sailing (5.5 m R-class) at the Summer Olympics in Helsinki with Edgar White , Michael Schoettle and Sumner White . Even later, sailing was his passion. He often named his yachts Complex after his discovery of the enzyme-substrate complex .

He was married three times, most recently in 2010 to Shoko Nioka, a Taiwanese scientist with whom he worked for many years, and had 16 children and stepchildren.

Web links

• Honors from the University of Pennsylvania
• Britton Chance in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Member entry by Prof. Dr. Britton Chance at the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina , accessed on January 11, 2017.