Paul D. Boyer | |
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 Boyer in 2016 | |
| Born | (1918-07-31)July 31, 1918 Provo, Utah, U.S. |
| Died | June 2, 2018(2018-06-02) (aged 99) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
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| Spouse | Lyda Whicker |
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Paul Delos Boyer (July 31, 1918 – June 2, 2018) was an Americanbiochemist,analytical chemist, and a professor of chemistry atUniversity of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He shared the 1997Nobel Prize in Chemistry forresearch on the "enzymatic mechanism underlying thebiosynthesis ofadenosine triphosphate (ATP)" (ATP synthase) withJohn E. Walker, making Boyer the firstUtah-born Nobel laureate; the remainder of the Prize in that year was awarded to Danish chemistJens Christian Skou for his discovery of theNa+/K+-ATPase.[1]
Boyer was born inProvo, Utah, and grew up in a nonpracticing Mormon family of Dutch, German, French, and English descent. He attendedProvo High School, where he was active instudent government and the debating team.[2] He was also his high schools valedictorian and played intramural basketball in high school and college. He received aB.S. inchemistry fromBrigham Young University in 1939 and obtained a Wisconsin Alumni ResearchFoundationScholarship for graduate studies. Five days before leaving forWisconsin, Paul married Lyda Whicker in 1939, and they remained married for nearly eighty years until his death in 2018, making him the longest-married Nobel laureate.[3] The Boyers had three children.
Though the Boyers connected with the Mormon community inWisconsin, they considered themselves "on the wayward fringe" and doubted the doctrinal beliefs ofthe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).[4] After experimenting withUnitarianism, Boyer eventually became anatheist.[5] In 2003 he was one of 22 Nobel laureates who signed theHumanist Manifesto.[6]
After Boyer received hisPh.D. degree inbiochemistry from theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison in 1943, he spent years atStanford University on a war-related research project dedicated to stabilization of serum albumin for transfusions. He began his independent research career at theUniversity of Minnesota and introduced kinetic, isotopic, and chemical methods for investigatingenzyme mechanisms. In 1955, he received aGuggenheim Fellowship and worked withProfessorHugo Theorell on the mechanism ofalcohol dehydrogenase. In 1956, he accepted a Hill Foundation Professorship and moved to the medical campus of theUniversity of Minnesota. In 1959–1960, he served asChairman of the Biochemistry Section of theAmerican Chemical Society (ACS) and in 1969–1970 asPresident of the American Society of Biological Chemists.
Since 1963, he had been a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry atUniversity of California, Los Angeles. In 1965, he became the founding director of theMolecular Biology Institute and spearheaded the construction of the building and the organization of an interdepartmental Ph.D. program. This institutional service did not diminish the creativity and originality of his research program, which led to three postulates for the binding mechanism forATP synthesis—that energy input was not used primarily to form ATP but to promote the binding ofphosphate and mostly the release of tightly bound ATP; that three identical catalytic sites went through compulsory, sequential binding changes; and that the binding changes of the catalytic subunits, circularly arranged on the periphery of the enzyme, were driven by the rotation of a smaller internalsubunit.
Paul Boyer waseditor or associate editor of theAnnual Review of Biochemistry from 1963 to 1989. He was editor of the classic series, "The Enzymes".[2] When he worked on the series "The Enzymes", he was helped by his wife Lyda as she was a professional editor at UCLA. In 1981, he was faculty research lecturer at UCLA. In that same year, he was awarded the prestigiousTolman Medal by the Southern California Section of theAmerican Chemical Society.
Boyer died ofrespiratory failure on June 2, 2018, at the age of 99, less than two months shy of his 100th birthday at hisLos Angeles home.[7][8][9]
| Year | Organization | Award title, Category | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1955 | American Chemical Society | Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry | [10] |
| 1955 | John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation | Guggenheim Fellowship, study in Sweden | |
| 1968 | American Academy of Arts and Sciences | Fellow | [11] |
| 1970 | National Academy of Sciences | Member | [11] |
| 1974 | Stockholm University | Honorary Doctorate | |
| 1976 | University of California, Los Angeles | McCoy Award | |
| 1981 | American Chemical Society Southern California Section | Tolman Award | [12] |
| 1981 | University of California, Los Angeles | Faculty research lecturer | |
| 1989 | American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology | William C. Rose Award | [13] |
| 1996 | University of Minnesota | Honorary Doctorate | |
| 1997 | Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences | Nobel Prize in Chemistry | [1] |
| 1998 | University of California, Los Angeles Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry | Glenn T. Seaborg Medal | [14] |
| 1998 | University of Wisconsin | Honorary Doctorate | |
| 1998 | American Academy of Achievement | Golden Plate Award | [15] |
| 1998 | American Philosophical Society | Member | [16] |
including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1997Energy, Life, and ATP
