Robin Hill (biochemist)

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Robert Hill
Robert Hill FRS
Born
Robert Hill

(1899-04-02)2 April 1899[1]
Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, United Kingdom
Died15 March 1991(1991-03-15) (aged 91)
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
Known for
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
David Alan Walker (postdoc)[2][3]

Robert Hill

Z-scheme[8][9] of oxygenic photosynthesis.[4][10][11][12][13][14][15]

Education and early life

Hill was born in New Milverton, a suburb of

First World War he served in the Anti-gas Department of the Royal Engineers.[16]

Career

In 1922, he joined the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge, where he was directed to research

haem containing protein cytochrome c. In 1932, he commenced work on plant biochemistry, focusing on photosynthesis and the oxygen evolution of chloroplasts
, leading to the discovery of the 'Hill reaction'.

From 1943, Hill's work was funded by the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), although he continued to work in the Cambridge Biochemistry Department. Hill continued to receive most of his recognition for his earlier work on photosynthesis, and beginning in the late 1950s, his work concentrated on the energetics of photosynthesis. In collaboration with Fay Bendall, he made his second great contribution to photosynthesis research with the discovery of the 'Z scheme' of electron transport.

Hill retired from the ARC in 1966, although his research at Cambridge continued until his death in 1991. In his later years Hill worked on the issue of the application of the

Second Law of Thermodynamics
to photosynthesis.

He was an expert on natural dyes and cultivated plants such as madder and woad. He painted watercolours using pigments he himself extracted.[1] In the 1920s, he developed a fish-eye camera and used it to take stereoscopic whole-sky images, recording cloud patterns in three dimensions.

Awards and honours

The Robert Hill Institute at the

dissociation curve of myoglobin which explain the physiological function of the pigment. He also determined the structure and properties of several haematin compounds thereby aiding the study of their catalytic activities. He discovered a new approach to the biochemical study of photosynthesis which enabled him to demonstrate and to measure the evolution of oxygen by isolated chloroplasts exposed to light in the complete absence of CO2. This remarkable photochemical reaction was found by him to have the same properties as "light reaction" obtained with intact green cells in presence of CO2, and it led him to formulate an interesting working hypothesis of the mechanism of photosynthesis.[18]

He was awarded the Royal Medal in 1963, and the Copley Medal in 1987.

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 73043184
    .
  2. PMID 6049483
    .
  3. S2CID 10337431
    .
  4. ^
    S2CID 21567780
    .
  5. S2CID 4095025
    .
  6. S2CID 35967623
    .
  7. doi:10.1098/rspb.1939.0017
    .
  8. PMID 11950615
    .
  9. S2CID 4225589
    .
  10. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49777. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  11. ^ Hill, R.; Whittingham, C.P. (1953). Photosynthesis. London: Methuen.
  12. ^ Archives Hub, Papers and correspondence of Robert (Robin) Hill, 1899-1991
  13. S2CID 20861602
    .
  14. ^ Robin Hill's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  15. ISBN 9780121818869
    .
  16. S2CID 73043184
    .
  17. ^ "Sign in - Google Accounts".
  18. ^ "EC/1946/12 Hill, Robert". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 8 July 2019.
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