William Jencks

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William Platt Jencks (born August 15, 1927 in Bar Harbor , Maine , † January 3, 2007 ) was an American biochemist and enzymologist .

Career and work

In 1951 Jencks received his Medical Doctor at Harvard Medical School . He initially assisted at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and then spent a year as a postdoc at Massachusetts General Hospital . With Fritz Albert Lipmann he deepened his knowledge of biochemistry and chemistry. During the Korean War , Jencks served at Walter Reed Military Hospital as an employee of the Army Medical Service Graduate School Department of Pharmacology . After two years he returned to Lipmann, where he worked in his laboratory for another year. He then went - also as a postdoc - to Harvard University with Robert B. Woodward . In 1957 he moved to Brandeis University . First as an assistant professor , then as an associate professor and later as a full professor of biochemistry. In 1996 he retired .

Jencks has published nearly 350 scientific articles as author or co-author, mainly in the field of enzymology.

Jencks was a member of the National Academy of Sciences , the American Philosophical Society , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society . He was honored with the James Flack Norris Award , the Repligen Award in Chemistry of Biological Processes and in 1963 the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry .

Jencks gave birth to the concept of the Circe effect , in which enzyme reactions take place at an accelerated rate due to electrostatic forces of attraction.

He and his wife Miriam had two children together.

Publications (selection)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ WP Jencks: Binding energy, specificity, and enzymic catalysis: the circle effect. In: Advances in enzymology and related areas of molecular biology. Volume 43, 1975, ISSN  0065-258X , pp. 219-410. PMID 892 . (Review).
personal data
SURNAME Jencks, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jencks, William Platt
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American biochemist and enzymologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Bar Barbour , Maine
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 2007