Arthur Pardee
Arthur Beck Pardee | |
---|---|
Born | July 13, 1921 |
Died | February 24, 2019 | (aged 97)
Nationality | American |
Citizenship | American |
Education | Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley (1942) Master's degree from California Institute of Technology (1943) PhD degree from California Institute of Technology (1947) |
Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
Known for | PaJaMo Experiment |
Awards | Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry (1960) Sir Hans Krebs Medal (1973) Rosenstiel Award (1974) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Molecular biology |
Institutions | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Harvard Medical School |
Arthur Beck Pardee (July 13, 1921 – February 24, 2019) was an American biochemist. One biographical portrait[1] begins "Among the titans of science, Arthur Pardee is especially intriguing." There is hardly a field of molecular biology that is not affected by his work, which has advanced our understanding through theoretical predictions followed by insightful experiments. He is perhaps most famous for his part in the 'PaJaMo experiment' of the late 1950s, which greatly helped in the discovery of messenger RNA.[2] He is also well known as the discoverer of the restriction point, in which a cell commits itself to certain cell cycle events during the G1 cycle. He did a great deal of work on tumor growth and regulation, with a particular focus on the role of estrogen in hormone-responsive tumors. He is also well known for the development of various biochemical research techniques, most notably the differential display methodology, which is used in examining the activation of genes in cells. More recently he championed the acceptance and adoption of the conceptual review as a valuable approach to unearthing new knowledge from the enormous stores of information in the scientific literature. He died in February 2019 at the age of 97.[3]
Career
Pardee received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1942 while his Master's (1943) and PhD (1947) degrees were earned at the California Institute of Technology under the mentorship of Linus Pauling, who he considered to be the greatest chemist of the 20th century. Pardee did postdoctoral work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison before returning to Berkeley as an instructor in biochemistry in 1949. In the 1950s, he was on a sabbatical with Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod in Paris. In 1961 Pardee became Professor in Biochemical Sciences at Princeton University while in 1975 he moved to Boston to become Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School as well as Chief for the Division of Cell Growth and Regulation at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In 1981, Pardee became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.[4] Pardee became an emeritus professor at Dana-Farber in 1992. He became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1936,[5] the National Academy of Sciences in 1968,[6] and the American Philosophical Society in 2001.[7]
PaJaMo
While on sabbatical in Paris with Jacob and Monod, Pardee was involved in an experiment that became known as PaJaMo.[8] The PaJaMo experiment, and later work with his student Monica Riley showed that protein synthesis from a gene could begin almost as soon as the gene entered an E.coli cell. Prior hypotheses around the translation of genetic information into proteins had focused on ribosomes, which turned over too slowly to enable the rapid synthesis seen in PaJaMo. On 15 April 1960, Jacob discussed the PaJaMo experiment's findings with Sydney Brenner and Francis Crick at King's College, Cambridge. This caused Brenner and Crick to formulate on the spot the hypothesis that yet another RNA species existed, messenger RNA.[9]
Feedback Inhibition
With his student Richard Yates, Pardee discovered that biosynthesis of pyrimidine in Escherichia coli is subject to feedback inhibition.[10] This represented an important step in understanding metabolic regulation.
The restriction point
In the early 1970s Pardee identified that the cell cycle has a point in the 'G1 phase' where the cell, as it were, 'commits' to moving to the 'S phase'. Pardee published on this so-called 'restriction point', sometimes called the 'Pardee point', in 1974.[11]
Students
Pardee's students included Allan Wilson, who gained his PhD at Berkeley under Pardee's supervision in 1961. Monica Riley was also a Ph.D. student with Pardee and contributed to his studies of mRNA.
References
- ^ Blagosklonny, Mikhail V.; Campisi, Judith; Keyomarsi, Khandan; Medrano, Estela E. (2001). "No Restriction Points in Life and Science". Cell Cycle. 1 (2): 100–2. PMID 12429915.
- ^ Meselson, Matthew (2014). "François and "X"". Research in Microbiology. 165 (5): 313–315. doi:10.1016/j.resmic.2014.05.004. PMID 24853970.
- ^ Arthur B. Pardee
- ^ "About Us". World Cultural Council. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
- ^ "Arthur Beck Pardee". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
- ^ "Arthur B. Pardee". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-10-15.
- ^ Meselson, Matthew (2014). "François and "X"". Research in Microbiology. 165 (5): 313–315. doi:10.1016/j.resmic.2014.05.004. PMID 24853970.
- ^ Crick, Francis (1988). What Mad Pursuit. Basic Books. pp. 118–119. ISBN 9780465091379.
- ^ Yates, R.A.; Pardee, A.B. (1956). "Control of pyrimidine biosynthesis in Escherichia coli by a feed-back mechanism". J. Biol. Chem. 221 (2): 757–770. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(18)65188-9. PMID 13357469.
- ^ Pardee, A. B. (1974). "A Restriction Point for Control of Normal Animal Cell Proliferation". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 71 (4): 1286–1290. Bibcode:1974PNAS...71.1286P. doi:10.1073/pnas.71.4.1286. PMC 388211. PMID 4524638.
External links
- [1] The 'PaJaMo' paper from the Journal of Molecular Biology.
- [2] The 1974 PNAS paper on the Restriction Point.
- [3] Portrait of an Editorial Board Member: Arthur B. Pardee in the journal Cell Cycle (1:2, 100-100, March/April 2002).
- [4] U.S. patents that list Arthur Pardee as an inventor.
- [5] interview: Science in the Blood, BioTechniques, 2006, vol. 41, no. 6, p. 659.
- [6] A landscape of pinnacles: The extraordinary career of Arthur Pardee Journal of Cellular Physiology.
- Arthur B. Pardee papers, 1949-2001. H MS c372. Harvard Medical Library, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Mass.
- 1921 births
- 2019 deaths
- American biochemists
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- Founding members of the World Cultural Council
- University of California, Berkeley alumni
- California Institute of Technology alumni
- University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty
- University of California, Berkeley faculty
- Harvard Medical School faculty
- Members of the American Philosophical Society
- Members of the National Academy of Medicine