James Baddiley

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Sir James Baddiley (born  May 15, 1918 in Manchester , †  November 17, 2008 in Cambridge ) was a British biochemist . From 1954 to 1977 he worked as a professor of organic chemistry and then until 1983 as professor of chemical microbiology at Newcastle University , where he also headed the Microbiological Chemistry Research Laboratory from 1975 to 1983 . The focus of his work was the biosynthesis, the structure and the biological function of various biochemical compounds, especially the teichonic acids . For his research, with which he made important contributions to the understanding of the structure of the cell wall of bacteria , he was admitted to the Royal Society in 1961 and the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1963 and was awarded the Davy Medal in 1974.

Life

James Baddiley was born in Manchester in 1918 and studied chemistry at the University of Manchester , where he worked from 1941 as a doctoral student in the working group of the later Nobel Prize winner Alexander Robertus Todd . He received his doctorate in 1944 and in the same year moved to the University of Cambridge with Alexander Todd . From 1947 to 1949 he worked at the Wenner Gren Institute at Stockholm University . After returning to his home country, he went to the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London , where he stayed until 1954, during which time he established his own working group.

He then received a professorship for organic chemistry at Newcastle University , which he held until 1977. In the same year he was appointed professor of chemical microbiology there. In addition, from 1975 until his retirement in 1983 he headed the Microbiological Chemistry Research Laboratory at Newcastle University , which resulted from his work group . From 1981 he also contributed to the establishment of the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge.

James Baddiley was married in 1944 and had one son. He died in Cambridge in 2008 at the age of 90 .

Scientific work

James Baddiley first worked on the synthesis of nucleosides and nucleotides as part of his doctoral thesis and later at Cambridge University . He succeeded in 1949, among other things, the initial chemical synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and 1953 in collaboration with Fritz Lipmann from Harvard University educating the structure of coenzyme A . Based on this work, he devoted himself after his move to Newcastle in the structure and biological function of cytidine connections CDP-glycerol and CDP-ribitol, for which he was able to show that they play an important role in the development of teichoic in the bacterial cell wall play . In the further course of his career he investigated the biosynthesis , the function and the immunological properties of teichonic acids, and thus contributed significantly to the understanding of the structure of the cell wall of gram-positive bacteria.

Awards

James Baddiley was inducted into the Royal Society in 1961 and the Royal Society of Edinburgh two years later . In addition, he was in 1977 for Knight Bachelor beaten and 1981 Fellow of Pembroke College appointed the University of Cambridge. The Heriot-Watt University (1978) and the University of Bath (1986) awarded him an honorary doctorate . He also received the Corday Morgan Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1962 , the Leeuwenhoek Medal of the Royal Society in 1967 and the Davy Medal in 1974 , also from the Royal Society, the highest British honor for scientists in the field of chemistry.

Works (selection)

  • James Baddiley, Alexander Robertus Todd: 122. Nucleotides. Part I. Muscle Adenylic Acid and Adenosine Diphosphate. In: Journal of the Chemical Society. 1947, pp. 648-651
  • James Baddiley, A. Michael Michelson, Alexander Robertus Todd: 124. Nucleotides. Part II. A Synthesis of Adenosine Triphosphate. In: Journal of the Chemical Society. 1949, pp. 582-586
  • James Baddiley, Eric M. Thain, G. David Novelli, Fritz Lipmann: Structure of Coenzyme A. In: Nature . Volume 171, issue 4341 of January 10, 1953, p. 76
  • Francis C. Neuhaus, James Baddiley: A Continuum of Anionic Charge: Structures and Functions of D-Alanyl-Teichoic Acids in Gram-Positive Bacteria. In: Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews. 67 (4) / 2003, pp. 686-723

literature

personal data
SURNAME Baddiley, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Manchester
DATE OF DEATH November 17, 2008
Place of death Cambridge