Sidney W. Fox

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Sidney W. Fox

Sidney W. Fox (born March 24, 1912 in Los Angeles , † August 10, 1998 ) was an American biochemist who discovered a self-production (autosynthesis) of minimal cell forms (protocells).

Education and Early Career

Fox graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in chemistry . After working briefly as a technician for Max Bergmann at the Rockefeller Institute and UCLA, he returned to California to do a PhD at Caltech . During his studies at Caltech, Fox worked with Hugh Huffman, Thomas Hunt Morgan , and as a post-doctoral student under Linus Pauling .

During World War II , Fox took part in an attempt to isolate vitamin A from shark liver; the preparation should improve the night vision of pilots. In 1941 he founded a protein chemistry laboratory at the University of Michigan Medical School; In 1942 he was researching fishmeal proteins for a company in Oakland .

professor

In 1943 Fox received his first academic position at Iowa State College . In 1955, Fox became director of the Florida State University Oceanographic Institute . Shortly afterwards he published his first textbook with Joseph Foster. From 1964 Fox served as director of the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Evolution (IMCE) at the University of Miami . During his time, his laboratory was commissioned to study the first lunar rocks brought back from the Apollo mission . After living in Florida for more than three decades, Fox moved to Southern Illinois University in 1989 and the University of South Alabama in 1993 .

Microspheres

Sidney Fox's best-known research originated in the 1950s and 1960s when he was studying spontaneous changes in protein structures. His early work shows that under certain conditions amino acids can spontaneously form small proteinoids - the first step on the way to the formation of large proteins. The result was significant because its experimental premises resembled other premises that might have existed in the history of the earth .

Further work showed that these amino acids and small peptides could be stimulated to form closed spherical membranes called microspheres . Fox went so far as to describe these formations as protocells : protein spheres that could grow and reproduce. They could have been an important intermediate stage in the making of life. Microspheres could be the missing link between simple organic compounds and living cells .

family

In 1937 Fox married Raia Joffe, with whom he had three sons.

See also

Fonts

  • with Joseph F. Foster. Introduction to Protein Chemistry. Wiley, 1957.
  • Sidney W. Fox y Joseph F. Foster. Introduction to Protein Chemistry . Wiley, 1957.
  • Fox, SW, 1965. Simulated natural experiments in spontaneous organization of morphological units from protenoid. In The Origins of Prebiological Systems and Their Molecular Matrices, SW Fox (ed), New York: Academic Press, pp. 361-382.
  • Fox, SW, 1980. The origins of behavior in macromolecules and protocells. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology 67B: 423-436
  • The Emergence of Life: Darwinian Evolution from the Inside, Basic Books, 1988 ISBN 978-0-465-01925-0

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fox, Sidney W.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biochemist
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH los Angeles
DATE OF DEATH August 10, 1998