Rodney Robert Porter
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Rodney Robert Porter
British biochemist (1917–1985)
Porter was educated at the university in his native city of Liverpool and at Cambridge University, where he was a pupil of Frederick Sanger. After working at the National Institute of Medical Research from 1949 to 1960 he moved to the chair of immunology at St. Mary's Hospital, London. Porter remained there until 1967 when he accepted the post of professor of biochemistry at Oxford.
In 1962 Porter proposed a structure for the important antibody gamma globulin (IgG). Ordinary techniques of protein chemistry revealed that the molecule is built up of four polypeptide chains paired so that the molecule consists of two identical halves, each consisting of one long (or heavy) chain and one short (or light) chain.
Further evidence was obtained by splitting the molecule with the enzyme papain. This split IgG into three large fragments, two similar to each other known as Fab (fragment antigen binding) and still capable of combining with antigen, and a crystalline fragment known as Fc (fragment crystalline) without any activity. This immediately suggested to Porter that, because crystals only form easily from identical molecules, the halves of the heavy chain that make up the Fc fragment are probably the same in all molecules. Thus the complexity is mainly in the Fab fragments where the combining sites are found.
Linking such insights with results obtained by Gerald Edelman and data derived from electron microscopy allowed Porter to propose the familiar Y-shaped molecule built from four chains joined by disulfide bridges with the variable combining part at the tips of the arms of the Y.
In 1972 Porter shared with Edelman the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for their work in determining the structure of an antibody.
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Sir Robert Ker Porter
(b Durham, 26 April 1777; d St Petersburg, 4 May 1842). British painter, writer and diplomat. His family moved to Edinburgh in 1780, and there he knew the young Walter Scott and the Jacobite heroine Flora Macdonald. A battle painting owned by Macdonald inspired him to become a painter of battle scenes himself. In 1790 his mother took him to London to see Benjamin West, President of the Royal Academy, who was impressed by Porter's sketches and arranged for him to be admitted to the Royal Academy Schools. There he made rapid progress and in 1792 was awarded a silver palette by the Royal Society of Arts for his drawing the Witches of Endor (untraced). The following year he was commissioned to paint an altarpiece for Shoreditch Church in London, and he received a number of further commissions over the succeeding years. On a visit to his grandparents in Durham he painted his only known landscape, View of Durham (untraced), which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1797. Also in 1797 he and his sisters Jane Porter and Anna Maria Porter, both writers, founded the short-lived illustrated literary periodical The Quiz, with the support of Thomas Frognall Dibdin. By 1799 the whole family was resident in Joshua Reynolds's old house in London, which was visited by a host of writers and artists including West, Dibdin, Hannah More and James Northcote.
See the Abbreviations for further details.
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Sir Robert Ker Porter
Porter, Rodney Robert, 1917-85, British biochemist, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1948. He was a researcher at the National Institute of Medical Research, England (1949-1960), and a professor at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School-Univ. of London (1960-1967) before becoming a professor at Oxford in 1967. In 1972 Porter and Gerald M. Edelman received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discoveries concerning the chemical structure of antibodies. Using different techniques and working independently, the two constructed a complete model of the giant antibody molecule, which consists of some 1,300 amino acids. The findings of Edelman and Porter provided the groundwork for much of the research that followed in immunology and led to further breakthroughs in the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
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Rodney Robert Porter
| Rodney Robert Porter | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | October 8, 1917 Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire |
| Died | September 6, 1985 (aged 67) |
| Nationality | English |
| Fields | biochemistry |
| Institutions | National Institute for Medical Research |
| Alma mater | University of Liverpool University of Cambridge |
| Doctoral advisor | Frederick Sanger |
| Known for | Chemical structure of antibodies |
| Notable awards | 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine |
Rodney Robert Porter, FRS[1] (8 October 1917 – 6 September 1985) was an English biochemist[2][3] and Nobel laureate.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]
Born in Newton-le-Willows, St Helens, Lancashire, England, Rodney Robert Porter received his Bachelors of Sciences degree from the University of Liverpool in 1939 for Biochemistry. He moved to the University of Cambridge where he became Fred Sanger's first PhD student. He was awarded his doctorate in 1948.
He worked for the National Institute for Medical Research for eleven years (1949–1960) before joining St. Mary's Hospital Medical School, Imperial College London and becoming the Pfizer Professor of Immunology. In 1967 he was appointed Whitley Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford.
In 1972, Porter shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology with Gerald M. Edelman for determining the chemical structure of an antibody. Using the enzyme papain, he broke the blood's immunoglobin into fragments, making them easier to study. He also looked into how the blood's immunoglobins react with cellular surfaces.
In 1991, Prof. Raymond Dwek founded the Oxford Glycobiology Institute at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford and this building was named after Porter as the Rodney Porter building.
He died in a road accident near Winchester, Hampshire and is survived by his wife and five children.
References
- ^ Perry, S. V. (1987). "Rodney Robert Porter. 8 October 1917-6 September 1985". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 33: 444–426. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1987.0017. JSTOR 769960. PMID 11621436.
- ^ Johnstone, A. P.; Kerr, M. A.; Turner, M. W. (1985). "Rodney Robert Porter (1917–1985)". Journal of Immunological Methods 85 (1): 1–4. doi:10.1016/0022-1759(85)90268-6. PMID 3908556.
- ^ Steiner, L. A. (1985). "Rodney Robert Porter (1917–1985)". Nature 317 (6036): 383. doi:10.1038/317383a0. PMID 3900741.
- ^ Raju, T. N. (1999). "The Nobel chronicles. 1972: Gerald M Edelman (b 1929) and Rodney R Porter (1917-85)". Lancet 354 (9183): 1040. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)76658-7. PMID 10501404.
- ^ Porter, R. R. (1991). "Lecture for the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine 1972: Structural studies of immunoglobulins. 1972". Scandinavian journal of immunology 34 (4): 381–389. PMID 1925407.
- ^ Hein, H. (1973). "Nobel price for medicine 1972". Fortschritte der Medizin 91 (4): 167. PMID 4573771.
- ^ Datta, R. K.; Datta, B. (1973). "Nobel Prize winners in Medicine (1972)". Journal of the Indian Medical Association 60 (1): 17–18. PMID 4577220.
- ^ Schlesinger, M. (1973). "The 1972 Nobel prize for medicine, G.M. Adelman and R.R. Porter". Harefuah 84 (1): 41. PMID 4571222.
- ^ Harboe, M. (1972). "Nobel prize for immunoglobulin research". Tidsskrift for den Norske laegeforening : tidsskrift for praktisk medicin, ny raekke 92 (34): 2363–2365. PMID 4568120.
- ^ Peterson, P. A. (1972). "1972 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. The chemical structure of antibodies". Lakartidningen 69 (44): 5069–5073. PMID 4561953.
- ^ Chedd, G. (1973). "Nobel prize for medicine in 1972". Orvosi hetilap 114 (8): 451–452. PMID 4568717.
Further reading
- Kyle, R A; Shampo M A (November 2000). "R.R. Porter--the 4-chain structure of immunoglobulin G". Mayo Clin. Proc. 75 (11): 1110. PMID 11075737.
- "Proceedings of the International Symposium on "The role and significance of international cooperation in the biomedical sciences." Dedicated to the memory of Dr. Rodney R. Porter. Washington, D.C., September 21–23, 1983". Perspect. Biol. Med. 29 (3 Pt 2): S1–229. . 1986. PMID 3523420.
- Small, P A (. 1985). "Rod Porter: his gifts to a young scientist". Biosci. Rep. 5 (10-11): 969–71. doi:10.1007/BF01119909. PMID 3913473.
- Pasternak, C A (. 1985). "Rodney Robert Porter". Biosci. Rep. 5 (10-11): 809–13. doi:10.1007/BF01119892. PMID 3913470.
- Pasternak, Charles A. (. 1985). "Special issue in memory of Rodney Porter". Biosci. Rep. 5 (10-11): 809–1014. PMID 3913469.
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