Vernon Ingram

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Vernon Martin Ingram , Ph.D., FRS (birth name Werner Adolf Martin Immerwahr , born May 19, 1924 in Breslau , Lower Silesia ; † August 17, 2006 in Boston , Massachusetts ) was a German-American biologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .

biography

Ingram was born in 1924 in Breslau , what was then Lower Silesia . He was the youngest son of the timber merchant Kurt Immerwahr and his wife Johanna geb. Friend; his older brother was the classical philologist Henry Rudolph Immerwahr . During the National Socialist era , the family was persecuted because of their Jewish origins and left the German Reich when Ingram was 14 years old. At first you lived in England . During the Second World War worked Ingram in a chemical factory and studied at night at Birkbeck College of the University of London . He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1945 and a PhD in organic chemistry in 1949. After receiving his doctorate, he worked as a postdoc at the Rockefeller Institute and at Yale University . At “Rockefeller” he worked with Moses Kunitz on the crystallization of proteins. During his time at Yale, he worked with Joseph Fruton on peptide chemistry. In 1952 he returned to England and began his work at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory studying protein chemistry. In 1956, Ingram, John A. Hunt and Antony OW Stretton showed that sickle cell anemia is caused by an exchange of a glutamic acid for a valine in the hemoglobin . Ingram used electrophoretic and chromatographic methods to detect the amino acid exchange . Max Perutz and Francis Crick support the work of Ingram and his colleagues. For this he received the William Allan Award from the American Society of Human Genetics in 1967 . Ingram's work showed for the first time that disease can be caused by the replacement of a single amino acid in a protein. Therefore, Ingram is sometimes referred to as the "father of molecular medicine".

Ingram came to MIT in 1958. At first he only wanted to stay a year. But he liked it so much that he stayed. During his time at MIT, he worked with Paul A. Marks of Columbia University on hemoglobin. He also began to be interested in fetal hemoglobin, which is different from that of adults. In 1963, Ingram was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In the 1980s he became increasingly interested in Alzheimer's research. After his retirement, he continued his work at MIT in a small laboratory. He and his wife were house parents of the Ashdown House student residence at MIT for over 16 years. The asteroid (6285) Ingram is named in his honor . in 2002 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences . Ingram died on August 17, 2006 in Boston in an accident.

See also

literature

  • Lisa A. Steiner: Ingram, Vernon Martin . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 2005–2008 . Oxford 2013, pp. 586f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Genome Biology (May 2, 2002). Retrieved June 13, 2012.
  2. ↑ Surprise! High-flying tribute for Ingrams
  3. ^ Three faculty named to NAS

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ingram, Vernon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ingram, Vernon Martin (full name); Immerwahr, Werner Adolf Martin (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American biologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Wroclaw
DATE OF DEATH August 17, 2006
Place of death Boston