Paul D. Boyer

Paul D. Boyer
Born Paul Delos Boyer
(1918-07-31) July 31, 1918
Provo, Utah
Nationality United States
Fields
Institutions
Alma mater Brigham Young University (B.S. 1939)
University of Wisconsin–Madison (M.S. 1941, Ph.D. 1943)
Known for
Notable awards

Paul Delos Boyer (born July 31, 1918) is an American biochemist, analytical chemist, and a professor of chemistry at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) . He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research on the "enzymatic mechanism underlying the biosynthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)" (ATP synthase) with John E. Walker, making Boyer the only Utah-born Nobel laureate; the remainder of the Prize in that year was awarded to Danish chemist Jens Christian Skou for his discovery of the Na+/K+-ATPase.[1] He is the oldest living Nobel laureate at age 99.

Birth and education

Boyer was born in Provo, Utah. He grew up in a nonpracticing Mormon family. He attended Provo High School, where he was active in student government and the debating team. He received a B.S. in chemistry from Brigham Young University in 1939 and obtained a Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Scholarship for graduate studies. Five days before leaving for Wisconsin, Paul married Lyda Whicker. They remain married and have three children: Gail B. Hayes, Alexandra Boyer and Dr. Douglas Boyer; and eight grandchildren: Imran Clark, Mashuri Clark, Rashid Clark, Djahari Clark, Faisal Clark, Lisa A. Hayes, Leah Boyer and Josh Boyer.

Though the Boyers connected with the Mormon community in Wisconsin, they considered themselves "on the wayward fringe" and doubted the doctrinal claims of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). After experimenting with Unitarianism, Boyer eventually became an atheist.[2] In 2003 he was one of 22 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.[3]

Academic career

After Boyer received his Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1943, he spent years at Stanford University on a war-related research project dedicated to stabilization of serum albumin for transfusions. He began his independent research career at the University of Minnesota and introduced kinetic, isotopic, and chemical methods for investigating enzyme mechanisms. In 1955, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and worked with Professor Hugo Theorell on the mechanism of alcohol dehydrogenase. In 1956, he accepted a Hill Foundation Professorship and moved to the medical campus of the University of Minnesota. In 1959-1960, he served as Chairman of the Biochemistry Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and in 1969-1970 as President of the American Society of Biological Chemists.

Since 1963, he has been a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at University of California, Los Angeles. In 1965, he became the Founding Director of the Molecular Biology Institute and spearheaded the construction of the building and the organization of an interdepartmental Ph.D. program. This institutional service did not diminish the creativity and originality of his research program, which led to three postulates for the binding mechanism for ATP synthesis—that energy input was not used primarily to form ATP but to promote the binding of phosphate and mostly the release of tightly bound ATP; that three identical catalytic sites went through compulsory, sequential binding changes; and that the binding changes of the catalytic subunits, circularly arranged on the periphery of the enzyme, were driven by the rotation of a smaller internal subunit.

Paul Boyer was Editor or Associate Editor of the Annual Review of Biochemistry from 1963-1989. He was Editor of the classic series, "The Enzymes". In 1981, he was Faculty Research Lecturer at UCLA. In that same year, he was awarded the prestigious Tolman Medal by the Southern California Section of the American Chemical Society.

Publications

Awards and honors

Year Organization Award title,
Category		 Refs
1955 American Chemical Society Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry [4]
1955 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Guggenheim Fellowship,
study in Sweden
1968 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow
1970 National Academy of Sciences Member
1974 University of Stockholm Honorary Doctorate
1976 University of California, Los Angeles McCoy Award
1981 American Chemical Society
Southern California Section		 Tolman Award [5]
1981 University of California, Los Angeles Faculty research lecturer
1989 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology William C. Rose Award [6]
1996 University of Minnesota Honorary Doctorate
1997 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Nobel Prize in Chemistry [1]
1998 University of California, Los Angeles
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry		 Glenn T. Seaborg Medal [7]
1998 University of Wisconsin Honorary Doctorate

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1997". Nobelprize.org. Archived from the original on March 23, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  2. ↑ Boyer, Paul D. (March 2004), "A Path to Atheism", Freethought Today, Freedom From Religion Foundation, 21 (2), retrieved March 16, 2010.
  3. ↑ "Notable Signers". Humanism and Its Aspirations. American Humanist Association. Retrieved September 15, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry". American Chemical Society. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 23, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  5. ↑ "1981 Paul D. Boyer, UCLA". Southern California Section of the American Chemical Society. Archived from the original on March 23, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  6. ↑ "William C. Rose Award". American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Archived from the original on March 23, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  7. ↑ "The Seaborg Medal". UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Archived from the original on March 23, 2017. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
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