Nobel Prize Winners in Photosynthesis Research
(For
more info on all the nobel
laureates, click here).
- Paul D. Boyer and John E. Walker (1997, Chemistry): Elucidation of enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP).
- Rudolph
Marcus
(1992, Chemistry): Electron transfer theory: included application to
photosynthesis. [He was at UIUC,
- Hartmut
Michel;
Robert Huber;
and Johannes Deisenhofer
(1988, Chemistry): X-ray structure of bacterial reaction center. [Michel
has visited
- Peter
Mitchell
(1978, Chemistry ..to check): Oxidative and
photosynthetic phosphorylation: chemi-osmotic theory.[The work was done in
- Robert
Burns Woodward
(1965, Chemistry): Total synthesis of chlorophyll, vitamin B12, and other
natural products.[He was at
- Melvin Calvin (1961, Chemistry): Carbon-di oxide assimilation in photosynthesis.[The work was done at Berkeley; Professor Calvin is known to me as he has visited UIUC, and, he is one of the two professors I had applied to do PhD with; the person who discovered 14C (Martin Kamen),that was crucial for Calvin's experiments, is known to me personally.]
- Richard
Kuhn
(1938, Chemistry): carotenoids; vitamins [
- Paul
Karrer
(1937, Chemistry): Carotenoid structure; flavins; vitamin B2[
- Hans
Fischer
(1930, Chemistry): Chlorophyll chemistry; hemin
synthesis[
- Richard
Martin Wilstatter
(1915, Chemistry): Chlorophyll purification and structure, carotenoids, etc.[
Those who worked in Photosynthesis, but only after their Prize in another field
- James Franck (with Hertz) (1925, Physics): Electron-atom collisions; later developed the principle known as the Franck-Condon principle; he later worked in photosynthesis; my PhD advisor Eugene Rabinowitch did his post-doctorate research with Franck on an effect known as the "cage effect" in photochemistry. Franck was brilliant, but most of his ideas on photosynthesis turned out to be wrong; he headed the Chemistry division of the Manhattan project on the "Atom bomb" at Chicago; later, he worked hard to get the US from not dropping the bomb in Japan.[ Work done in Germany] I met Professor Franck only once in 1963.
- Otto
Warburg
(1931, Physiology and Medicine): The respiratory Enzyme. He worked on the
quantum yield of photosynthesis; discovered the role of chloride and
bicarbonate in the :"light reactions"
of photosynthesis, among many phenomena in the "dark reactions"
of photosynthesis. His PhD student Robert Emerson was my first PhD advisor
from Sept. 1956- Feb. 1959. Warburg was proven wrong in the quantum yield
controversy with Emerson. He visited UIUC before I went there.[ Work done in
- Sir
(now Lord) George Porter,
O.M.(with Norrish
and Eigen)
(1967, Chemistry): Flash photolysis, among other systems, he studied
aromatic molecules and chlorophyll, energy transfer in photosynthesis and
primary photochemistry of photosynthesis in femtosecond-picosecond
time scale. [ Work done in
