John Howard Northrop

This article is about the Nobel Laureate chemist. For the aviation pioneer John K. Northrop, see Jack Northrop.

John Howard Northrop
Born	(1891-07-05)July 5, 1891 Yonkers, New York, USA
Died	May 27, 1987(1987-05-27) (aged 95) Wickenburg, Arizona, USA
Cause of death	Suicide
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	Columbia University
Known for	Studies of enzymes
Awards	Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1946) Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (1939)
Scientific career
Fields	Biochemistry
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley Columbia University Rockefeller University
Doctoral advisor	Jacques Loeb

John Howard Northrop (July 5, 1891 – May 27, 1987) was an American biochemist who won, with James Batcheller Sumner and Wendell Meredith Stanley, the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The award was given for these scientists' isolation, crystallization, and study of enzymes, proteins, and viruses. Northrop was a Professor of Bacteriology and Medical Physics, Emeritus at University of California, Berkeley.

Biography

Early years

Northrop was born in Yonkers, New York to John Isaiah, a zoologist and instructor at Columbia University, and Alice Rich Northrop, a teacher of botany at Hunter College. His father died in a lab explosion two weeks before John H. Northrop was born. The son was educated at Yonkers High School and Columbia University, where he earned his PhD in chemistry in 1915. During World War I, he conducted research for the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service on the production of acetone and ethanol through fermentation. This work led to studying enzymes.

Research

In 1929, Northrop isolated and crystallized the gastric enzyme pepsin and determined that it was a protein. In 1938 he isolated and crystallized the first bacteriophage (a small virus that attacks bacteria), and determined that it was a nucleoprotein. Northrop also isolated and crystallized pepsinogen (the precursor to pepsin), trypsin, chymotrypsin, and carboxypeptidase.

For his 1939 book, Crystalline Enzymes: The Chemistry of Pepsin, Trypsin, and Bacteriophage, Northrop was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1949. Northrop was employed by the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City from 1916 until his retirement in 1961. In 1949 he was appointed Professor of Bacteriology, University of California, Berkeley and later, Professor of Biophysics.

Personal life

In 1917, Northrop married Louise Walker (1891-1975), with whom he had two children: John, an oceanographer, and Alice, who married Nobel laureate Frederick C. Robbins. Northrop committed suicide in Wickenburg, Arizona in 1987.

Further reading

• Economos, A. C.; Lints, F. A. (1985), "Growth rate and life span in Drosophila V. The effect of prolongation of the period of growth on the total duration of life (J.H. Northrop, 1917)--revisited", Mech. Ageing Dev., vol. 33, no. 1 (published Dec 1985), pp. 103–13, doi:10.1016/0047-6374(85)90112-5, PMID 3908838
• Herriott, R. M. (1981), "John Howard Northrop", J. Gen. Physiol., vol. 77, no. 6 (published Jun 1981), pp. 597–9, doi:10.1085/jgp.77.6.597, PMC 2215443, PMID 7021760
• Herriott, R. M. (1994), "John Howard Northrop: July 5, 1891-May 27, 1987", Biographical Memoirs. National Academy of Sciences (U.S.), vol. 63, pp. 423–50, PMID 11615389

• See also this version of Northrop's National Academy of Science biography.

• Northrop, J. H. (1939), Crystalline Enzymes, Columbia University Press
• Shampo, M A; Kyle, R. A. (2000), "John Northrop--definitive study of enzymes", Mayo Clin. Proc., vol. 75, no. 3 (published March 2000), p. 254, doi:10.4065/75.3.254, PMID 10725951
• van Helvoort, T. (1992), "The controversy between John H. Northrop and Max Delbrück on the formation of bacteriophage: bacterial synthesis or autonomous multiplication?", Annals of Science, vol. 49, no. 6 (published November 1992), pp. 545–75, doi:10.1080/00033799200200451, PMID 11616207

External links

• Works by or about John Howard Northrop at the Internet Archive
• Northrop's Nobel Foundation biography
• Northrop's Nobel Lecture The Preparation of Pure Enzymes and Virus Proteins