Ian Read Gibbons[2] | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1931-10-30)30 October 1931[3] |
| Died | 30 January 2018(2018-01-30) (aged 86)[2] |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania King's College, Cambridge |
| Known for | Research indynein |
| Spouse | Barbara Gibbons (1961 to 2013) |
| Children | 2[4] |
| Awards | Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine(2017) International Prize for Biology(1995) E.B. Wilson Medal(1994) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biophysics Cell biology |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Harvard University |
| Doctoral advisor | John Bradfield[1] |
Ian Read Gibbons,FRS (30 October 1931 – 30 January 2018) was abiophysicist andcell biologist.[5] He discovered and nameddynein, and demonstrated energy source asATP is sufficient for dynein to walk onmicrotubules. In 2017, he andRonald Vale received theShaw Prize for their research onmicrotubule motor proteins.[6]
He was elected a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Great Britain in 1983. The Society stated:
Gibbons's passion for science stemmed from his interest in radio. He enteredQueen Elizabeth's Grammar School inFaversham in 1943, where he developed an interest towardsapplied physics. Following 18 months in theRoyal Air Force as aradar engineer, he was admitted intoKing's College, Cambridge, in 1951 to readphysics.[8] He graduated with abachelor's degree and then, in 1957, aPhD degree from Cambridge. His PhD research concerns usingelectron microscopes to study the organisation ofchromosomes duringmitosis andmeiosis. Gibbons then went to theUniversity of Pennsylvania as apostdoctoral researcher, where he stayed for 1 year. He subsequently moved to the Department ofBiology,Harvard University, to take up the post of director of the newly founded electron microscopy laboratory.[1][4]
While atHarvard, Gibbons studied the structure ofcilia andflagella of aprotozoan calledTetrahymena withelectron microscopes. In 1963, he discovered a novelprotein onmicrotubules and published its pictures.[9] Two years later, he purified two regions of the protein, known as its two "arms", naming the protein "dynein".[10] During his last year at Harvard, Gibbons demonstrated the protein making up microtubules was distinct fromactin, in that the former was associated withguaninenucleotides while the latter withadenine nucleotides,[11] but refrained from naming it; Hideo Mohri from theUniversity of Tokyo named ittubulin afterwards.[1]
Gibbons moved to the Kewalo Marine Laboratory,University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, in 1967 as anassociate professor. He found the cilia ofsea urchinsperms easier to work with than the cilia and flagella ofTetrahymena. In 1969, he was promoted toprofessor ofbiophysics.[4][12] Throughout the 1970s, Gibbons and his wife Barbara showed the sliding of microtubules caused cilia motility (known as the sliding tubule mechanism), and that this sliding was dependent on the energy generated fromATP hydrolysis byATPase. When microtubules visibly slid out of the ends of the flagellar fiber, the flagella disintegrated.[13] He then extended the mechanism tomammals, confirming the motility mechanism ofbull sperm cilia is the same as that for sea urchins.[14] After these findings, Gibbons switched his focus to themolecular biology ofdyneins, and determined theDNA sequence of the largestsubunit of dynein in 1991.[15] In 1993, he became the director of the Kewalo Marine Laboratory.[4]
Ian and Barbara Gibbons retired from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 1997; he went to theUniversity of California, Berkeley as a research scientist in the laboratory of Beth Burnside. In 2009, Burnside closed her laboratory, and Gibbons became avisiting researcher.[4][12]
Gibbons met his wife Barbara while inHarvard University; they married in 1961.[1] Barbara died in 2013 at age 81.[20] Gibbons also died in 2018.[2]
