John T. Edsall

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John Tileston Edsall (born November 3, 1902 in Philadelphia , † June 12, 2002 in Boston ) was an American biochemist and molecular biologist .

Live and act

John T. Edsall's father David Linn Edsall (also David Lynn Edsall , 1869-1945) was a professor of pharmacology and internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and later professor of clinical medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and dean of Harvard Medical School .

Shortly before his 17th birthday in 1919, John T. Edsall enrolled at Harvard College , where he lectured in biochemistry with Lawrence Joseph Henderson . In 1923 Edsall began studying medicine at Harvard Medical School , but interrupted it for two years from 1924 to take courses in biochemistry with the later Nobel Prize winner Frederick Hopkins in Cambridge , England. His fellow students there included u. a. Joseph Needham and Malcolm Dixon , among the other researches in Cambridge was a. a. David Keilin . Edsall traveled with Jeffries Wyman and Robert Oppenheimer during this time .

Back at Harvard, Edsall continued his research under Edwin Cohn , director of the physical chemistry department at the medical school . Here Edsall developed a method to isolate actomyosin from muscle preparations and together with Alexander von Muralt examined the optical properties of this isolate. After completing his medical degree in 1928, Edsall stayed with Cohn, whose work group dealt with the physicochemical properties of peptides and amino acids in order to ultimately elucidate the structure of proteins . Using Raman spectroscopy , Edsall was able to show that amino acids are dipolar ions, since both the amino and carboxy groups are charged at a neutral pH value . In 1932 he became an assistant professor and in 1938 an associate professor at Harvard University. In 1940/1941 a Guggenheim scholarship led him to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena . Due to the war, the interests of the Cohn working group at Harvard shifted in the (industrial) separation and purification of protein components of the blood plasma : albumin , gammaglobulins , prothrombin and fibrinogen . Edsall's area of ​​responsibility included the development of fibrinogen and fibrinogen polymer products, which were particularly needed in neurosurgery . Edsall received a full professorship.

After the war, the Cohn group turned back to basic protein research . Edsall examined the dimerization of various proteins using the Debye-Scherrer method . Ephraim Katchalski and Harold Scheraga were among his postdocs , Alexander Rich , Gary Felsenfeld , Jared Diamond and David Eisenberg were among his doctoral students. After Edwin Cohn's death in 1953, his laboratory at Harvard Medical School in Boston was closed . In 1954 Edsall moved to the Department of Biology at Harvard University in neighboring Cambridge , where he worked on the enzyme kinetics of α-carbonic anhydrases in red blood cells. He also helped set up a course in biochemistry there and became the first chairman of the Committee on Higher Degrees in Biochemistry , which in 1967 became the independent department for biochemistry and molecular biology .

In 1954, at the height of the McCarthy era , Edsall led the American Society of Biological Chemists to oppose the practice of slashing United States Public Health Service (PHS) research funding for unsafe researchers without giving them an opportunity to give a position on the respective allegations. Edsall, along with Wendell Stanley and others, got the National Academy of Sciences to oppose this practice as well. Until the procedure was abolished, Edsall refused to accept research funding from the NHS.

Edsall was recognized in 1966 “for his incisive experimental achievements in analyzing the physico-chemical basis of the structure and biological activity of amino acids , peptides and proteins [...], for his influential leadership role in promoting a physicochemical approach to biochemical problems and for his Service to biochemistry and medical science through its commitment in the professional societies ”with the Passano Award .

Edsall was the main publisher of scientific journals Journal of Biological Chemistry (1958-1968) and Advances in Protein Chemistry (1944-1994) and was one of the editors of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (1948-1958) and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Edsall wrote important reviews on the hydration of proteins and the hydrophobic effect , which plays an important role in protein folding . In 1973 Edsall retired , but remained scientifically active for 20 years. In 1975 he published a fundamental paper on the freedom of science and the related questions of scientific ethics and the secrecy of research results, which he only considered to be justified in a few exceptional cases.

John T. Edsall was married to Margaret Dunham († 1987) since 1929, and the couple had three sons.

Awards (selection)

Edsall received honorary doctorates from the University of Chicago , Case Western Reserve University , the University of Michigan , New York Medical College, and the University of Gothenburg .

The scientific journal Biophysical Chemistry dedicated its 100th edition to Edsall as a commemorative publication .

Fonts (selection)

  • With Edwin Cohn : Proteins, Amino Acids and Peptides as Ions and Dipolar Ions. 1943
  • With Jeffries Wyman: Biophysical Chemistry Vol. 1: Thermodynamics, Electrostatics and the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter. (1958)
  • With Herbert Gutfreund: Biothermodynamics (1983)

literature

Web links

  • John T. Edsall at the Harvard Gazette ; accessed on February 18, 2016

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present (PDF, 121 kB) of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org); Retrieved July 10, 2012
  2. ↑ John Simon Guggenheim Foundation - John T. Edsall. In: gf.org. Retrieved February 12, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Dr. John T. Edsall at the American Philosophical Society (amphilsoc.org); Retrieved July 10, 2012
  4. ^ Member entry of John T. Edsall at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on October 12, 2012.
  5. ^ Past Recipients - The Passano Foundation, Inc. In: passanofoundation.org. Accessed April 20, 2019 .
  6. ^ The Willard Gibbs Medal at the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society (chicagoacs.net); accessed on February 18, 2016
  7. ^ R. Jaenicke, JA Schellman, A. Cooper (Eds.): Biophysical Chemistry , Vol. 100, Special Issue in Honor of John T. Edsall , 625 S., Elsevier, Amsterdam 2003. ISSN  0301-4622
personal data
SURNAME Edsall, John T.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Edsall, John; Edsall, John Tileston
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biochemist and molecular biologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 3, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 2002
Place of death Boston