Dean Burk

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M. Dean Burk, PhD
National Library of Medicine USA
Born	1904
Died	1988

Dean Burk (March 21, 1904 - Oct. 6 1988) was an American biochemist: a co-discoverer of biotin, medical researcher, and a cancer researcher at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the National Cancer Institute. In 1934, he developed the Lineweaver-Burk plot together with Hans Lineweaver^[1].

Burk entered the University of California at Davis at the age of 15. A year later, he transferred to the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his B.S. in Entomology in 1923. Four years later he earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry. Burk joined the Department of Agriculture in 1929 working in the Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory.

In 1939, he joined the cancer institute as a senior chemist. He was head of the cytochemistry laboratory when he retired in 1974. He also taught biochemistry at the Cornell University medical school from 1939 to 1941. From he was a research master at George Washington University. Burk was a close friend and co-author of papers with Otto Heinrich Warburg.^[2]

For his work on photosynthesis, Burk received the Hillebrand Prize in 1952 and the Gerhard Domagk Prize in 1965 for his techniques to distinguish between a normal cell and one damaged by cancer. He was a co-developer of the prototype of the Magnetic Resonance Scanner and a co-discoverer of biotin.

After retiring form the NCI in 1974 he devoted himself to the study and discussion of fluoridation and alternative cancer treatments. A friend of Dean Burk has written that Dean Burk was responsible for convincing the government of the Netherlands to cease adding fluoride to its drinking water. ^[3]

He later became head of the National Cancer Institute's Cytochemistry Sector in 1938, though he is often mistaken as leading the entire facility.

Image:Dr. Mark Woods and M. Dean Burk.jpg

Dr. Mark Woods and M, Dean Burk Photo by Edward A. Hubbard - National Library of Medicine USA

Burk published more than 250 scientific articles in his lifetime.

[edit] Publications

D Burk, H Lineweaver (1930) "The Influence of Fixed Nitrogen on Azobacter," Journal of Bacteriology, Apr;27(4):325-40.

I Weisman, L. Bennett, L. Maxwell Sr., M. Woods, and D. Burk (1972)"Recognition of Cancer in vivo by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance", Science 178, 1288 - 1290

J Yiamouyiannis, D Burk "Fluoridation and cancer, age-dependence of cancer mortality related to artificial fluoridation" Fluoride 1977

Burk D, Schade AL. On respiratory impairment in cancer cells. Science. 1956 Aug 10;124(3215):270-2.

[edit] References

^ Lineweaver, H and Burk, D. (1934). "The Determination of Enzyme Dissociation Constants". Journal of the American Chemical Society 56: 658–666. doi:10.1021/ja01318a036.
^ Weiterentwicklung der zellphysiologischen Methoden: angewandt auf Krebs, Photosynthese und Wirkungsweise der Röntgenstrahlung: Arbeiten aus den Jahren 1945-1961, (Thieme, Stuttgart 1962) (Trans: Further Developments of Methods in Cellular Physiology applied to Cancer, Photosynthesis and the Effects of X-ray Radiation) Texts in German and English.
^ Ralph Moss: In Memory of Dean Burk. [1] website, accessed 24 January, 2007.