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Melvin Calvin
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| Scientist: Melvin Calvin |
American chemist and biochemist (1911–1997)
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Calvin studied chemistry at the Michigan College of Mining and Technology and gained his BS degree in 1931. After obtaining his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1935 he spent two years at Manchester working with Michael Polanyi. Here he became interested in chlorophyll and its role in the photosynthetic process in plants. Calvin began a long association with the University of California at Berkeley in 1937. From 1941 to 1945 he worked on scientific problems connected with the war, including two years on the Manhattan Project (the atomic bomb).
In 1946 Calvin became director of the Bio-organic Division of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley, where he used the new analytical techniques developed during the war – ion-exchange chromatography, paper chromatography, and radioisotopes – to investigate the ‘dark reactions’ of photosynthesis, i.e. those reactions that do not need the presence of light. Plant cells were allowed to absorb carbon dioxide labeled with the radioisotope carbon–14, then immersed at varying intervals in boiling alcohol so that the compounds they synthesized could be identified. In this way the cycle of photosynthetic reactions (known as the Calvin cycle) was elucidated and shown to be related in part to the familiar cycle of cell respiration. This work, which was collected in The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis (1957), earned Calvin the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1961.
Calvin remained at Berkeley, as director of the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics (1960–63), professor of molecular biology (1963–71), and professor of chemistry (1971). He continued to work on problems of photosynthesis (especially on the role of chlorophyll in quantum conversion) and on the evolution of photosynthesis.
| Biography: Melvin Calvin |
American chemist Melvin Calvin (born 1911) did research that yielded important discoveries over broad areas of physical and biological chemistry, from metal-organic chemistry to the chemical origin of life.
Melvin Calvin was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on April 8, 1911, to Russian immigrant parents. The family moved to Detroit, Michigan when Calvin was a child. He attended Michigan College of Mining and Technology, and, after a break of several years during the Great Depression that found him working in a Detroit brass factory, he graduated in 1931. He received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1935. His doctoral thesis concerned the electron affinity of iodine and bromide. A Rockefeller fellowship allowed Calvin the opportunity to do postdoctoral study at the University of Manchester, England, after which he joined the chemistry department of the University of California, Berkeley, in 1937, working as an instructor in chemistry before becoming a professor in 1947. He married Genevieve Jemtegaard in 1942; they had three children.
Organic Chemical Systems
At Berkeley, Calvin became interested in the structure and behavior of organic molecules, an interest that had been inspired by research on the catalytic reactions of the organic molecules involved in photosynthesis that he had undertaken while in England. He pursued his own studies in addition to his teaching duties, but was interrupted from both upon the United States entry into World War II. During the war, although he continued to teach, Calvin gave up his research to work for the National Defense Research Council and, later, as part of the Manhattan project charged with developing the atomic bomb, where he developed a process for procuring pure oxygen from the atmosphere that has since had significant peace-time applications for medical patients with breathing problems.
Resuming his research at Berkeley after the end of the war, Calvin studied the physical and chemical properties of organic compounds, writing The Theory of Organic Chemistry (1940) and The Chemistry of Metal Chelate Compounds (1952). His clear understanding of the nature of organic molecules was to prove valuable in his subsequent work in biological chemistry. He formed the bio-organic chemistry group, which later expanded to the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics, in the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory of the University of California in 1945.
Maps Process of Photosynthesis
Working with his University of California associates, Calvin used the radioactive isotope carbon-14 - which had become available to scientists in 1945 - as a tracer for investigations of complex organic chemical systems. They described these tracer techniques in Isotopic Carbon (1949). In Calvin's research, chorella, a green algae, was suspended in water and then exposed to light. Then carbon dioxide consisting of carbon-14 was added. When the algae went through its life processes, producing carbohydrates from the carbon dioxide, water, and minerals, the presence of carbon-14 could be traced using a new research tool, paper chromatography. The series of compounds containing the radioactive carbon at different stages of photosynthesis were thus identified, and the biochemical mechanism of photosynthesis was mapped. These discoveries were described in The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis (1957) and The Photosynthesis of Carbon Compounds (1962). Calvin's proposal that plants change light energy to chemical energy by transferring an electron in an organized array of pigment molecules and other substances was substantiated by research in his laboratory and elsewhere.
Calvin tested his theories of the chemical evolution of life with studies of organic substances found in ancient rocks and of the formation of organic molecules by irradiation of gas mixtures, thus simulating the atmosphere thought to exist on earth billions of years ago. These findings were described in Chemical Evolution (1969). He was author of over 400 publications and held a number of patents.
Consulted widely in industry, Calvin became a member of the Board of Directors of the Dow Chemical Company in 1964. He served on many scientific boards for the United States government, including the President's Science Advisory Committee for presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He was president of the American Society of Plant Physiologists in 1963-1964, president of the American Chemical Society in 1971, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London. In 1961 he received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the path of carbon in photosynthesis. The Royal Society awarded him the Davy Medal in 1964 for his pioneering work in chemistry and biology, particularly the photosynthesis studies.
Despite his important contribution to chemistry and biology, Calvin continued to involve himself in research. In the 1970s, as the shortage of the world's oil fuel supply was brought into sharp perspective by the Arab Oil Embargo, he began to contemplate the possibility of alternative nature-based fuels. From a farm in Northern California, he began testing the practicality of his theory: that a plantation growing certain species of rubber trees that secrete a sap with characteristics similar to petroleum, could produce enough of this sap to constitute a viable alternative fuel source. After retiring from the University of California, Calvin continued to be honored from his scientific peers, receiving the American Chemical Society's Priestly Medal in 1978 and that organization's Oesper Prize in 1981.
Further Reading
There is no full-length biography of Calvin. Melvin Berger's, Famous Men of Modern Biology (1968), written in nontechnical language, contains a section on Calvin that emphasizes his work in photosynthesis. William Gilman, Science: U.S.A. (1965), devotes a section to Calvin and his work in chemical biosynthesis. A useful background source is John F. Hemahan, Men and Molecules (1966), which contains no biography of Calvin but discusses his work. Other information can be found in McGraw-Hill Modern Men of Science (1984), H.W. Wilson Nobel Prize Winners (1987), and David Swift SETI Pioneers (1990).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Melvin Calvin |
Calvin, Melvin, 1911-97, American organic chemist and educator, b. St. Paul, Minn., grad. Michigan College of Mining and Technology, 1931, Ph.D. Univ. of Minnesota, 1935. In 1937 he joined the faculty at the Univ. of California, where he became director (1946) of the bioorganic division of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (which became the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics in 1960) and professor (1947) of chemistry. For his work in determining the chemical reactions that occur when a plant assimilates carbon dioxide, Calvin was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His writings include The Photosynthesis of Carbon Compounds (with J. A. Bassham, 1962) and Chemical Evolution (1969).
| Wikipedia: Melvin Calvin |
| Melvin Calvin | |
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 Melvin Calvin
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| Born | April 8, 1911 St. Paul, Minnesota, USA |
| Died | January 8, 1997 (aged 85) Berkeley, California |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Chemistry, Biology |
| Institutions | University of Manchester University of California, Berkeley Berkeley Radiation Laboratory Science Advisory Committee |
| Alma mater | Michigan College of Mining and Technology University of Minnesota |
| Known for | Calvin cycle |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1961) Priestley Medal Davy Medal Gold Medal from American Institute of Chemists |
Melvin Ellis Calvin (April 8, 1911 - January 8, 1997) was an American chemist most famed for discovering the Calvin cycle along with Andrew Benson and James Bassham, for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He spent most of his five-decade career at the University of California, Berkeley.
Calvin was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, the son of Russian immigrants. His father was Lithuanian and his mother Georgian. As a small child, Calvin's family moved to Detroit; he graduated from Central High School in 1928[1]. Melvin Calvin earned his Bachelor of Science from the Michigan College of Mining and Technology (now known as Michigan Technological University) in 1931 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1935. He then spent the next four years doing postdoctoral work at the University of Manchester. He married Genevieve Jemtegaard in 1942, and they had three children, two daughters and a son.
Calvin joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 1937 and was promoted to Professor of Chemistry in 1947. End 1950s he was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research. In 1963 he was given the additional title of Professor of Molecular Biology. He was founder and Director of the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics and simultaneously Associate Director of Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, where he conducted much of his research until his retirement in 1980.
Using the carbon-14 isotope as a tracer, Calvin and his team mapped the complete route that carbon travels through a plant during photosynthesis, starting from its absorption as atmospheric carbon dioxide to its conversion into carbohydrates and other organic compounds[2][3]. In doing so, the Calvin group showed that sunlight acts on the chlorophyll in a plant to fuel the manufacturing of organic compounds, rather than on carbon dioxide as was previously believed. In his final years of active research, he studied the use of oil-producing plants as renewable sources of energy. He also spent many years testing the chemical evolution of life and wrote a book on the subject [4] that was published in 1969.
References
- ^ http://www.bookrags.com/biography/melvin-calvin/
- ^ CALVIN, M (1956), "[The photosynthetic cycle.]", Bull. Soc. Chim. Biol. 38 (11): 1233–44, 1956 Dec 7, PMID 13383309
- ^ BARKER, S A; BASSHAM, J A; CALVIN, M; QUARCK, U C (1956), "Intermediates in the photosynthetic cycle.", Biochim. Biophys. Acta 21 (2): 376–7, 1956 Aug, doi:, PMID 13363921
- ^ Calvin, Melvin. Chemical evolution: molecular evolution towards the origin of living systems on the earth and elsewhere. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. ISBN 0198553420.
External links
- Nobel speech and biographmems/mcalvin.html Tribute by Glenn Seaborg and Andrew Benson
- research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants
- Biographical memoir by Glenn Seaborg and Andrew Benson
- U.S. Patent 4427511 Melvin Calvin - Photo-induced electron transfer method
- Encyclopedia Britannica Article
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Mentioned in
- Calvin cycle
- Gilbert Newton Lewis
- Walter Gilbert (American molecular biologist)
- life (in biology)
- Year 1945 (in Science & Technology)
- James Bassham
- Year 1957 (in Science & Technology)
- Year 1961 (in Science & Technology)
- Year 1965 (in Science & Technology)
- Nobel prizes in chemistry
- Nobel Prizes (table)
- Prizes and Awards (American history)
- Calvin (name)
- PRIZES AND AWARDS: Nobel Prize (1901–2000)
