All Biological chemistry articles – Page 10

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On This Day - Feb 26 : Otto Wallach died

He devised a systematic analysis method to determine the molecular structure of the terpenes found in fragrant essential oils. Up until this point, few terpenes had been isolated in their pure form and structural information was very limited.
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On This Day - Mar 26 : Christian Anfinsen was born

He received half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1972 for research on ribonuclease and amino acid sequences. He identified the connection between the molecular structure of ribonuclease and its biological function.
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On This Day - Mar 25 : HIV has no latent period

These papers showed that HIV-positive patients who had not developed AIDS still showed high levels of the HIV virus in their lymphatic system, implying that the virus actively replicates even when no symptoms are detected.
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On This Day - Oct 24 : Henrik Dam found vitamin K

When Dam fed chickens a diet low in cholesterol, he found that their blood did not clot. However, he discovered that it wasn’t just cholesterol but also a vitamin that they were lacking. He called this Vitamin K, after the German word for coagulation, “koagulation”.
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On This Day - May 21 : Bengt Samuelsson was born

He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1982 with Sune Bergström and John Vane for their work on how prostaglandins are formed and metabolised. Prostaglandins are hormone-like substances that participate in a wide range of bodily functions.
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On This Day - Jun 19 : Ernst Chain was born

Chain and his partner Howard Florey extracted and isolated the antibiotic penicillin from Penicillium mould nine years after its accidental discovery by Alexander Fleming. Chain, Florey and Fleming shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1945 for their work.
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On This Day - Nov 19 : James Sumner was born

He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946 with John Howard Northrop and Wendell tanley for the discovery that enzymes can be crystallized. This allowed him to show that enzymes are in fact proteins.
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On This Day - Jun 17 : Donald James Cram died

He shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Jean-Marie Lehn and Charles Pedersen for their work on host-guest chemistry, where two or more molecules or ions bond in unique ways due to their structure. This has allowed the synthesis of molecules that mimic the action of enzymes.
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On This Day - May 14 : First smallpox vaccination

The English doctor inserted pus from a cowpox pustule into an incision on the arm of eight-year old James Phipps. From then on Phipps was immune to smallpox, one of the most virulent killer diseases of the time.
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On This Day - Jun 12 : Fritz Lipmann was born

Lipmann was awarded half the 1953 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of coenzyme A and its role in nutrition. Coenzyme A is a molecule required in the synthesis and oxidation of fatty acids.
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On This Day – Sep 11 : Rudolf Schoenheimer died

He developed the technique of “tagging” molecules with radioactive isotopes. This made it possible to trace the pathways of organic molecules in animals and plants, and revolutionized metabolic studies.
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On This Day – Sep 10 : DNA fingerprinting

He identified that every individual has a unique genetic code, so people could be identified by their genetic fingerprints. The technique has since helped to solve crime investigations and allowed the identification of family members in paternity cases.
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On This Day - May 07 : Arda Alden Green was born

She made many contributions to the field of biochemistry. Green’s most notable research was on the isolation and characterisation of proteins, in particular haemoglobin and the enzymes responsible for bioluminescence. She received the 1958 Garvan Medal, which recognises special service to chemistry by women.
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On This Day – Sep 04 : Stanford Moore was born

He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Christian Anfinsen and William H. Stein in 1972 for their work on the structure of ribonuclease enzymes. These enzymes catalyse the degradation of ribonucleic acids (RNA) and are involved in the destruction of RNA viruses.
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On This Day - Feb 15 : von Euler-Chelpin was born

He shared the 1929 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Arthur Harden for their investigations on the fermentation of sugar and on fermentative enzymes.
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On This Day - Feb 09 : Jacques Monod was born

Jacques Monod, François Jacob and André Lwoff received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965 for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis.
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Rise of molecular machines

2012-09-01T00:00:00Z

Chemists are putting molecules to work in ways only limited by our imagination
Soundbite
Toxic amino acids

2012-07-01T00:00:00Z

Simon Cotton takes a look at those compounds that find themselves in the news or relate to our everyday lives.
The Mole
Glucose

2012-05-01T11:23:00Z

Prepare to be energised as Phillip Broadwith describes one of life’s energy sources and explains its connection with diabetes
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What's in your strawberries?

2012-05-01T00:00:00Z

Why are strawberries so irresistible? Do the strawberries you pick in the wild really taste nicer than shop-bought ones?