Kim Sung-Hou
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Kim Sung-Hou (born 1937) is a Korean-born American
structural biologist Structural biology is a field that is many centuries old which, and as defined by the Journal of Structural Biology, deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every le ...
and
biophysicist Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...
. Kim reported the first 3D structure of
tRNA Transfer RNA (abbreviated tRNA and formerly referred to as sRNA, for soluble RNA) is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 76 to 90 nucleotides in length (in eukaryotes), that serves as the physical link between the mRNA and the amino ...
with A. Rich in 1973. He also published many papers on the structures of protein molecules including human Ras, human cyclin dependent kinase 2 and small heat shock protein. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1994. He is currently a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the U.C. Berkeley and a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL).


Biography

Kim Sung-Hou was born in 1937 in
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
. He obtained his B.S. (1960) and M.S. (1962) in chemistry from Seoul National University,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
, and his PhD in 1966 from the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...
. From 1966 to 1970 he was a research associate at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
under
Alexander Rich Alexander Rich (15 November 1924 – 27 April 2015) was an American biologist and biophysicist. He was the William Thompson Sedgwick Professor of Biophysics at MIT (since 1958) and Harvard Medical School. Rich earned an A.B. ('' magna cum l ...
, and a senior research scientist there from 1970 to 1972, also with Rich. From 1972 to 1978, he served as assistant and associate professor at the Department of Biochemistry, Duke University School of Medicine, and as Professor at the Department of Chemistry,
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
, from 1978 to present.


Controversy over structure of tRNA

There was some intense competition among several groups worldwide for solving the 3D structure of tRNA during the sixties and early seventies. The final round was between MIT's
Rich Rich may refer to: Common uses * Rich, an entity possessing wealth * Rich, an intense flavor, color, sound, texture, or feeling **Rich (wine), a descriptor in wine tasting Places United States * Rich, Mississippi, an unincorporated commun ...
group and Aaron Klug's group at Cambridge. Kim, while at MIT, first published the 4Å backbone structure in ''
Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
'' in 1973. The next year, Rich's group came up with the 3Å structure. At a symposium held in June 1974, both Rich and Robertus from Klug's group presented their results with little detail. Afterwards Klug's group argued and complained to Francis Crick that Rich's group published a paper in ''Science'' within a month of the symposium influenced by what they had heard which differed in some details from Rich's earlier 3 Å structure. Two weeks later a ''
Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
'' paper by Klug's group presented their 3 Å structure. Crick wrote to Rich concerning Klug's accusation. However, Rich denied any scientific misconduct. The controversy arose from Klug's group not realizing that there were two tRNA models in the US: the MIT model (produced by Rich's team) and the Duke model (produced by Kim's team; Kim had moved to Duke University in 1972). There had been a breakdown of communication between the MIT and Duke groups in 1973-1974, during which period the models were developed independently. The ''Science'' paper in 1974 was based on the Duke model, which reconfirmed the correctness of the original backbone structure, and revealed an atomic structure that differed in a few details from the MIT model and, as it turned out, from the Cambridge model as well. The existence of the Duke model was later recognized and acknowledged by Crick. The controversy would have been resolved at the outset if it had been informed to Klug's group that the Science paper in 1974 was based specifically on the tRNA structural model of Kim's laboratory at Duke University, not on the MIT model.


Plexxikon

In 2001, Kim co-founded Plexxikon with Professor Joseph Schlessinger of
Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
. Plexxikon uses a pioneering structural biology-based platform as a technique for drug discovery and development.Plexxikon web site
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References


External links


Kim group webpage at UC Berkeley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kim, Sung-Hou 1937 births American biophysicists Duke University faculty Living people Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Seoul National University alumni South Korean emigrants to the United States UC Berkeley College of Chemistry faculty American crystallographers Recipients of the Ho-Am Prize in Science University of Pittsburgh alumni