Charles Tanford

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Charles Tanford (born Karl Tannenbaum on December 29, 1921 in Halle (Saale) , died October 1, 2009 in York ) was an American biochemist .

Childhood and studies

Tanford was born in 1921 to Charlotte and Majer ( Max ) Tannenbaum. His Jewish parents fled the emerging Nazi regime to England in 1929 ; they changed their family name to Tanford and Karl became Charles . In 1939, at the outbreak of World War II , Tanford was sent to relatives in New York . Many of his relatives who remained in Germany perished during the Holocaust . While in the United States, Tanford earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry from New York University in 1943 and worked on the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge .

1947 closed Tanford his doctoral studies at Princeton University with a Ph.D. in chemistry; his research dealt with the combustion of gases and led to the formulation of the Tanford-Pease theory of the rate of combustion.

Academic career and research focus

After graduating from Princeton, he worked with Edwin Cohn and John Edsall at Harvard University on protein biochemistry for two years . This was followed by a position as an assistant professor at the University of Iowa ; In 1954 he became an associate professor and in 1959 a full professor . In 1960 he moved to Duke University as a professor of biochemistry , and in 1980 to the Faculty of Physiology, where he researched the transport of ions across cell membranes together with EA Johnson and Jacqueline Reynolds .

According to Tanford's own account, it was Walter Kauzmann who encouraged him to deal with protein chemistry and to make macromolecules his main research focus. Tanford's book The Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules (1961) was written over a period of 10 years; Peer reviews were only carried out after the final manuscript had been submitted. Tanford referred to this as "disaster" and "biting criticism"; the publisher John Wiley & Sons asked for major changes, which Tanford refused: "I knew these critics were wrong". Tanford was able to prevail, and his text was finally published without changes. "In fact, the book was then a success ..."

In 1973 he published The Hydrophobic Effect, which deals with the different manifestations of proteins, including membrane proteins . The term hydrophobic effect became widely known through Tanford; he himself named GS Hartley and Walter Kauzmann in all of his publications as the originators of this concept; he stood on the shoulders of giants . A change in protein folding ( Tanford transition ) is named after him.

Tanford was a founding member of the World Culture Council in 1981.

In 1988 he retired; as a professor emeritus , he remained a member of the Faculty of Cell Biology at James B. Duke University.

Honors

In recognition of his academic achievements, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . He has received research grants ( Fellows ) from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (1984). Tanford was awarded the Merck Medal of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and was a George Eastman Professor at Oxford .

The protein research center at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg was named after Charles Tanford. At the grand opening of the building in 2017, Milton Stubbs addressed his family with moving words and particularly praised his fundamental work on the stability of the protein structure.

Private life

While at Harvard, he married Lucia Brown, with whom he had three children. The marriage was divorced in 1968; soon afterwards he entered into a relationship with his colleague, the biochemist Jacqueline A. Reynolds, with whom he stayed until his death.

After retiring in 1988, Tanford and Reynolds moved to Easingwold , a market town in North Yorkshire , England. From there he started a second career, now as an author of books on the history of science, which were primarily aimed at a lay readership.

2001 Oxford University Press published Nature's Robots: A History of Proteins ; Here Tanford and Reynolds develop the representation of proteins as autonomous effectors , comparable to robots .

Reynolds and Tanford published two travel guides: A Travel Guide to the Scientific Sites of the British Isles: A Guide to the People, Places and Landmarks and The Scientific Traveler: A Guide to the People, Places and Institutions of Europe . Together they published numerous reviews and obituaries in the British science journal Nature .

Works (selection)

  • Charles Tanford: The Hydrophobic Effect: Formation of Micelles and Biological Membranes . John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, NY 1973, ISBN 978-0-471-84460-0 .
  • Charles Tanford: Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules . John Wiley & Sons , New York , NY 1961.
  • Charles Tanford: Ben Franklin Stilled the Waves: An Informal History of Pouring Oil on Water with Reflections on the Ups and Downs of Scientific Life in General . Oxford University Press, 1989, ISBN 0-8223-0876-2 .
  • Charles Tanford, Jacqueline A. Reynolds: The Scientific Traveler: A Guide to the People, Places, and Institutions of Europe . Wiley, New York 1992, ISBN 0-471-57698-0 .
  • Charles Tanford, Jacqueline A. Reynolds: Nature's Robots: A History of Proteins . Oxford University Press, Oxford; New York 2001, ISBN 0-19-850466-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m C. Nick Pace: In memoriam: Reflections on Charles Tanford (1921–2009) . In: Protein Science . tape 19 , no. 1 , 2010, ISSN  1469-896X , p. 1-5 , doi : 10.1002 / pro.291 .
  2. ↑ James B. Duke Professor Charles Tanford Dies . In: Duke Today , Duke University. Archived from the original on July 29, 2012. Retrieved October 25, 2009. 
  3. ^ C. Nick Pace, Gerald R. Grimsley: Charles Tanford 1921-2009. In: Biographical Memoirs. National Academy of Sciences, 2014 (PDF, 357 kB) ; accessed on August 23, 2017.
  4. ^ A b C. Tanford: Macromolecules. In: Protein Science . tape 3 , no. 5 , 1994, ISSN  0961-8368 , pp. 857-861 , PMC 2142717 (free full text).
  5. ↑ About Us . World Cultural Council . Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  6. ^ National Academy of Sciences: Charles Tanford . Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  7. ↑ Fellows Whose last names begin with T . John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Archived from the original on March 14, 2008. Retrieved March 31, 2008.
  8. ^ ASBMB – Merck Award. ASBMB , accessed December 30, 2016 .
  9. ^ Protein Center Halle: Minister Wanka hands over research building. Retrieved December 8, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Tanford, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tannenbaum, Karl (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Halle (Saale) , Germany
DATE OF DEATH October 1, 2009
Place of death York , England