James Batcheller Sumner

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James Batcheller Sumner (born November 19, 1887 in Canton , Massachusetts , † August 12, 1955 in Buffalo , New York ) was an American chemist and Nobel Prize winner .

James Batcheller Sumner

Life

James Batcheller Sumner was born to Charles and Elizabeth Rand Sumner. The original left-hander became right-handed after his left arm was amputated above the elbow joint as a result of a hunting accident . He was married three times and had two children. The first marriage to Bertha Louise Ricketts lasted from 1915 to 1930. In 1931 Sumner remarried. The marriage to Agnes Paulina Lundkvist also ended in divorce. The third marriage to Mary Morrison Beyer in 1943 has two children. Sumner died of cancer .

Act

In 1906 Sumner began studying electrical engineering at Harvard , but switched to chemistry within a few weeks . As part of his thesis, he published his first paper, which dealt with the attempt to synthesize papaverine . In 1910 he finished his studies. After completing his studies, Sumner moved to the Sumner Knitting Padding Company, a knitting factory in which his uncle Frederick W. Sumner was director. After a few months he gave up the position in favor of Mt. Allison College in Sackville, New Brunswick , where he taught chemistry for a semester. He then took an assistant position in the chemistry department at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester , Massachusetts , which he also quickly gave up to continue his studies in chemistry at Harvard. He reached the degree as Master in 1913 and doctorate in 1914 with the work The formation of urea in the Animal Body (The formation of urea in the animal body) under Otto Folin . Parts of it have been published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry .

In 1914, Sumner accepted a position as assistant professor of biochemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca . In 1926 Sumner isolated and crystallized an enzyme , urease, for the first time . The discovery, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry in 1926, that the enzyme can be isolated from Canavalia ensiformis , the jack bean and is identical to globulin , was received with skepticism by other biochemists. After the crystallization of pepsin , trypsin and chymotrypsin was published by John Howard Northrop and Kunitz in 1930 , the work found greater acceptance. In 1938 Sumner was appointed professor of biochemistry in the zoological faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences. The position was placed under the College of Agriculture two years later. A biochemistry department was established there in 1945, which in 1947 set up a laboratory for enzyme chemistry , of which Sumner was director.

Structure of Concanavalin A

Sumner received half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946 "for his discovery of the crystallizability of enzymes ". Among other things, he crystallized Concanavalin A and the enzyme urease , which he isolated from the sword bean . The second half of the award went to John Howard Northrop and Wendell Meredith Stanley .

Between 1950 and 1952 Sumner published "Die Enzyme" together with Karl Myrbäck . Two editions, each with two volumes, comprise 2800 pages and contain contributions from a total of 87 scientists. One day after a Cornell University symposium to say goodbye to Sumner and Leonard Maynard in May 1955, Sumner was hospitalized. He could never leave the hospital again.

Awards

Fonts

  • Textbook of biological chemistry . Macmillan, New York 1927
  • James Batcheller Sumner, George Frederick Somers: Chemistry and methods of enzymes . Academic Press, New York 1943, 1947 and 1953
  • James Batcheller Sumner, George Frederick Somers: Laboratory experiments in Biological Chemistry . Academic Press, New York 1944 and 1949
  • James Batcheller Sumner, Karl Mÿrback: Enzymes: Chemistry and mechanism of action . Academic Press, New York 1950
  • James Batcheller Sumner, Karl Mÿrbäck: The Enzymes, Volume 2 . Academic Press, New York 1952

literature

Web links

Commons : James Batcheller Sumner  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Overview of the publications by James Batcheller Sumner on Google Books
  2. ↑ a b c d e Leonard A. Maynard: James Batcheller Sumner - A Biographical Memory (PDF; 1.2 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Sumner, James Batcheller
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sumner, James B.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1946)
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Canton (Massachusetts)
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1955
Place of death Buffalo