Thomas Burr Osborne (chemist)

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Thomas Burr Osborne (born August 5, 1859 in New Haven , Connecticut , † January 29, 1929 there ) was an American biochemist . He worked for over 40 years at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven and analyzed proteins from plant seeds as well as their structure and distribution. In 1913 he published the discovery of vitamin A with Lafayette B. Mendel , at the same time as Elmer McCollum .

Life

Thomas Burr Osborne was born in New Haven , Connecticut in 1859 to Arthur Dimon Osborne and Frances Louisa Blake. His parents' ancestors came from England in the early 17th century and were among the first to settle in Massachusetts . His grandfathers were the politician Thomas Burr Osborne and the inventor Eli Whitney Blake . His father was a lawyer and banker, and president of the Second National Bank of New Haven for several years . Graduated from Hopkins Grammar School , Thomas B. Osborne took an early interest in birds and the outdoors, and was drawn into the natural sciences through his uncle, Eli Whitney Blake, Jr., a professor of physics at Brown University .

In 1877 he went to Yale University , where he made his bachelor's degree in 1881 . He then wanted to study medicine, but switched to chemistry after a year, where he received his doctorate under William G. Mixter in 1885 . After another year at Yale, he went to the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) on the initiative of his future father-in-law, Samuel W. Johnson . Johnson was Professor of Agricultural Chemistry at Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School and Director of CAES. His daughter Elizabeth Annah Johnson married Osborne in late 1886. Until shortly before his death in 1929, he worked at the research facility for over 40 years.

Act

Thomas B. Osborne's research work was divided into two main subject areas. Until 1909 he analyzed the protein content of plant seeds as well as their structure and distribution. Thereafter, a twenty-year collaboration with started Lafayette Mendel , with whom he decisively to the discovery of vitamin A helped.

Vegetable proteins

At the suggestion of Samuel W. Johnson and building on the work of Heinrich Ritthausen , Osborne began isolating proteins from plant seeds in 1888. Starting with oats , he examined over 30 different grain seeds and determined the proportion of albumins , globulins , prolamines and glutenins which, according to their solubility, form the Osborne fractions named after him . He also determined the amino acids contained in the proteins. He used the hydrolysis process developed by Albrecht Kossel and Emil Fischer around the turn of the century and was able to significantly expand and specify the work on protein structure by Ritthausen, Kossel and Fischer. Among other things, he showed that the storage protein zein in maize does not contain the amino acid tryptophan discovered by Frederick Gowland Hopkins . Osborn summarized his results in 1909 in the monograph The Vegetable Proteins , which was revised in 1924 in the second edition and in 1910 in German translation in Results of Physiology .

Discovery of vitamin A.

From 1909, Mendel and Osborne investigated the influence of different isolated proteins on the growth and development of young animals and on the health of adult rats in animal experiments with albino rats. The experiments showed that some amino acids are essential for survival and have to be consumed with food, while others are only crucial for the growth of young animals.

The experiments also showed that when young animals were exclusively fed with protein extracts, sugar, starch and pork fat, their growth was restricted, but that they developed fully when milk powder or butter was added. Special protein-free milk powder also led to poor development and comparisons between the normal and protein-free milk powder showed that the latter also lacked milk fat. Mendel and Osborne concluded that must be contained in the milk in addition to the proteins, another substance that is essential for growth and eventually led to coincide with Elmer McCollum to the discovery of the fat-soluble factor A, who later vitamin A called. McCollum had published the results of similar studies a few months before Osborne and Mendel in 1913 and had come to the same conclusion. In the years that followed, Mendel and Osborne extracted a yellowish oil from butter, egg yolk and cod liver that could not be obtained from olive oil or pork fat. In the 1930s, other scientists were able to show that the yellowish dye is β-carotene , a precursor of vitamin A ( retinol ).

Awards (selection)

literature

Works

  • The Proteins of the Wheat Kernel. Carnegie Institution, Washington, DC 1907.
  • The Vegetable Proteins. Longmans, Green and Co., London 1909 (2nd edition 1924).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary Records of Yale Graduates 1919–1920. In: Bulletin of Yale University. Vol. 16, No. 11, 1920, pp. 1324-1326.
  2. ↑ a b Hubert Bradford Vickery: Thomas Burr Osborne (1859-1929). In: Biographical Memoirs. Vol. XIV, 1931, pp. 261-304, here pp. 262-265.
  3. ^ Hubert Bradford Vickery: Thomas Burr Osborne (1859-1929). In: Biographical Memoirs. Vol. XIV, 1931, pp. 261-304, here p. 283.
  4. ↑ Thomas B. Osborne: The vegetable proteins. In: Results of Physiology. Vol. 10, No. 1, 1910, pp. 47-215, doi: 10.1007 / BF02321139 .
  5. ^ Joseph S. Fruton: Thomas Burr Osborne and Chemistry. In: Bull. Hist. Chem. Vol. 17, No. 18, 1995, pp. 1-8.
  6. ^ J. Russel Lindsay, Henry J. Baker: Historical Foundations. In: Mark A. Suckow, Steven H. Weisbroth, Craig L. Franklin (Eds.) The Laboratory Rat. 2nd edition, Elsevier Academic Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-12-074903-4 , pp. 1-52, here pp. 17-19.
  7. ↑ a b Hubert Bradford Vickery: Thomas Burr Osborne (1859-1929). In: Biographical Memoirs. Vol. XIV, 1931, pp. 261-304, here pp. 276-279.
  8. ↑ George Wolf: A history of vitamin A and retinoids. In: The FASEB Journal. Vol. 10, No. 9, 1996, pp. 1102-1107.
  9. ^ Russell Henry Chittenden: Biographical Memoir of Lafayette Benedict Mendel, 1872-1935. In: Biographical Memoirs. Vol. XVIII, 1937, pp. 123-155, here pp. 129-135.
  10. ↑ Thomas Burr Osborne. National Academy of Sciences, Deceased Members. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  11. ^ Book of Members, Chapter O. American Academy of Arts & Sciences, p. 416. Retrieved August 21, 2014.
  12. ↑ The John Scott Award Recepients 1921-1930. Eugene Garfield , accessed May 8, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Thomas Burr Osborne Medal. American Association of Cereal Chemists (AACC International). Retrieved August 21, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Osborne, Thomas Burr
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Osborne, Thomas B.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biochemist and co-discoverer of vitamin A.
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH New Haven , Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1929
Place of death New Haven , Connecticut