Joseph S. Fruton

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Joseph S. Fruton
Born
Joseph Fruchtgarten

(1912-05-14)May 14, 1912
Dexter Award (1993)
Scientific career
FieldsBiochemistry, history of science
InstitutionsRockefeller Institute Yale University
Doctoral advisorHans Thacher Clarke

Joseph Stewart Fruton (May 14, 1912 – July 29, 2007), born Joseph Fruchtgarten, was a Polish-American biochemist and historian of science. His most significant scientific work involved

synthetic peptides and their interactions with proteases; with his wife Sofia Simmonds he also published an influential textbook, General Biochemistry (1953; 1958).[1] From 1970 until his death, Fruton worked extensively on the history of science, particularly the history of biochemistry and molecular biology
.

Childhood and education

Joseph Fruchtgarten was born in

Polish Jews, the Fruchtgartens immigrated to the United States shortly before the outbreak of World War I. They lived in New York City from 1913 to 1917, and in April 1917 they moved to Minsk (then occupied by the Red Army in the midst of the Russian Civil War).[2] Between 1917 and 1923, Fruchtgarten attended school intermittently, moving from Minsk to Siedlce to Warsaw to Berlin, and learning French, German and Latin (in addition to Polish and English). In 1923, the Fruchtgartens returned to New York and changed their name to Fruton to avoid being targets of anti-Semitism. Joseph Fruton followed his father in rejecting religion, but learned early on "not to advertise either [his] Jewishness or [his] atheism."[3]

After a few months at

Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, working under Hans Thacher Clarke.[5] Fruton's PhD work focused on "the lability of cystine in alkali", although he developed a broad interest in the range of biochemistry-related research being pursued at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.[6]

During graduate school Fruton also became active politically, opposing fascism, militarism and anti-Semitism. In 1933 he met Sophia "Topsy" Simmonds, whom he married in 1936. Upon completing his PhD in May 1934, Fruton became a research assistant to

Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.[7]

Research at the Rockefeller Institute

Fruton was a researcher at the Rockefeller Institute from 1934 to 1945, part of Max Bergmann's long-term and very successful research program in protein chemistry. In his earliest work there, Fruton tested the

carbobenzoxy method of peptide synthesis and some of the associated side reactions.[8]

Between December 1941 and the end of World War II, research in Bergmann's lab shifted from basic protein chemistry to war-related research under the

Eli Lilly Award.[9]

Biochemistry at Yale

In 1945, after Max Bergmann's death, Fruton joined the

National Academy of Sciences,[12] and that year he also became chairman of the Department of Physiological Chemistry (which was renamed Biochemistry, reflecting the shift in research focus from medical to general biological problems).[13] He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1953.[14]

Most of Fruton's early research at Yale was funded by a grant from the

biosynthesis of proteins.[15] Rather than leading a team effort focused on a small number of high-priority problems, Fruton allowed members of his laboratory to choose their own problems (usually within the broad bounds of protein synthesis and proteinases). Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers who worked in Fruton's lab include: Mary Ellen Jones, Melvin Fried, Hannelore Würz, Peter Heinrich, Karen Nilsson, Bob Metrione, Yoshihiro Okuda, George Taborsky, Christine Zioudrou, Maxine Singer, Louis Cohen, Frederick Newth, John Thanassi, Charles Drey, Derek George Smyth, Atsuo Nagamatsu, and Milton Winitz. A number of prominent biochemists from outside Yale also spent time in Fruton's biochemistry department during his tenure as chair, including: Harry Kroll, Rosabelle McManus, John Clark Lewis, Herbert Gutfreund, Max Gruber, Frank Hird, Vernon Ingram, Hans Kornberg, Dimitrios Theodoropoulos, and Hans Tuppy.[16]

In 1953, Fruton and Simmonds completed the textbook General Biochemistry, which became one of the most influential textbooks for a generation of biochemistry students. They produced a second edition in 1958.[17]

Administrative work

In 1959, after offering advice to Yale president

Kingman Brewster, in which Brewster attempted to bypass Fruton's science advisory committee and create a molecular biology department independent of biochemistry department; the MBB department was created only after Brewster had failed to attract a prominent scientist from outside Yale to head a molecular biology department, and the department of biochemistry remained separate as part of the medical school until the creation of the department of molecular biophysics & biochemistry (MB&B) in 1969 (which was itself created after a lengthy and unsuccessful attempt to find a suitably eminent replacement for Fruton to head the department of biochemistry).[18]

Fruton was elected to the

Penn State).[20]

Death

Fruton died two days after his wife in

New Haven on 29 July 2007.[21]

Works

  • General Biochemistry (1953, 1958), with Sophia Simmonds
  • Molecules and Life: Historical Essays on the Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1972)
  • A Bio-bibliography for the History of the Biochemical Sciences since 1800 (1982, 1985, 1994)
  • Contrasts in Scientific Style: Research Groups in the Chemical and Biochemical Sciences (1990)
  • A Skeptical Biochemist (1992)
  • Eighty Years (1994)
  • Proteins, Enzymes, Genes: The Interplay of Chemistry and Biology (1999)
  • Methods and Styles in the Development of Chemistry (2002)

Awards and honors

In 1993, Fruton received the

Dexter Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry from the American Chemical Society.[22]

Notes

  1. ^ Joseph S. Fruton (1912– Archived 2008-12-17 at the Wayback Machine, Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, 2006. Accessed April 17, 2008
  2. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 8–12
  3. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 12–15; quotation from p. 15
  4. ^ Columbia College (Columbia University). Office of Alumni Affairs and Development; Columbia College (Columbia University) (1959). Columbia College today. Columbia University Libraries. New York, N.Y. : Columbia College, Office of Alumni Affairs and Development.
  5. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 16–23
  6. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 23–32; quotation from p. 27
  7. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 26, 32, 38
  8. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 38–54
  9. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 55–58
  10. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 92–112
  11. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 75–87
  12. ^ "Joseph S. Fruton". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2022-09-21.
  13. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 114–122
  14. ^ "Joseph Stewart Fruton". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-09-21.
  15. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 89–92
  16. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 128–131
  17. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, p. 134
  18. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 138–158, 191–207
  19. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-09-21.
  20. ^ Fruton, Eighty Years, pp. 158–175
  21. ^ "In Memoriam: Biochemists Joseph Fruton and Sofia Simmonds". Archived from the original on 2014-03-24. Retrieved 2013-04-12.
  22. ^ "Dexter Award for Outstanding Achievement in the History of Chemistry". Division of the History of Chemistry. American Chemical Society. Retrieved 30 April 2015.

References

  • Fruton, Joseph S. (1994). Eighty Years. New Haven, Connecticut: Epikouros Press.
    ISBN 0964046709
    .

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_S._Fruton&oldid=1179841054"