Paul Delos Boyer (July 31, 1918 – June 2, 2018) was an American

biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and Cell (biology), cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of ...

, analytical chemist, and a professor of chemistry at

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(UCLA). He shared the 1997

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

for

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

on the " enzymatic mechanism underlying the

biosynthesis Biosynthesis, i.e., chemical synthesis occurring in biological contexts, is a term most often referring to multi-step, enzyme-Catalysis, catalyzed processes where chemical substances absorbed as nutrients (or previously converted through biosynthe ...

adenosine triphosphate Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is a nucleoside triphosphate that provides energy to drive and support many processes in living cell (biology), cells, such as muscle contraction, nerve impulse propagation, and chemical synthesis. Found in all known ...

(ATP)" ( ATP synthase) with John E. Walker, making Boyer the first

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

-born Nobel laureate; the remainder of the Prize in that year was awarded to Danish chemist Jens Christian Skou for his discovery of the Na+/K+-ATPase.

Birth and education

Boyer was born in

Provo, Utah Provo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Utah County, Utah, United States. It is south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front, and lies between the cities of Orem, Utah, Orem to the north and Springville, Utah, Springville to the south ...

, and grew up in a nonpracticing Mormon family of Dutch, German, French, and English descent. He attended Provo High School, where he was active in student government and the debating team. He was also his high schools valedictorian and played intramural basketball in high school and college. He received a B.S. in

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

from

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU) is a Private education, private research university in Provo, Utah, United States. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is the flagship university of the Church Educational System sponsore ...

in 1939 and obtained a Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation

Scholarship A scholarship is a form of Student financial aid, financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, Multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion, athleti ...

for graduate studies. Five days before leaving for

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

, Paul married Lyda Whicker in 1939, and they remained married for nearly eighty years until his death in 2018, making him the longest-married Nobel laureate. The Boyers had three children. Though the Boyers connected with the Mormon community in

, they considered themselves "on the wayward fringe" and doubted the doctrinal beliefs of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Restorationism, restorationist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, denomination and the ...

(LDS Church). After experimenting with

Unitarianism Unitarianism () is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian sect of Christianity. Unitarian Christians affirm the wikt:unitary, unitary God in Christianity, nature of God as the singular and unique Creator deity, creator of the universe, believe that ...

, Boyer eventually became an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

. In 2003 he was one of 22 Nobel laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.

Academic career

After Boyer received his Ph.D. degree in

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

in 1943, he spent years at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

on a war-related research project dedicated to stabilization of serum albumin for transfusions. He began his independent research career at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

and introduced kinetic, isotopic, and chemical methods for investigating

enzyme An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different mol ...

mechanisms. In 1955, he received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

and worked with

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Hugo Theorell on the mechanism of

alcohol dehydrogenase Alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) () are a group of dehydrogenase enzymes that occur in many organisms and facilitate the interconversion between alcohols and aldehydes or ketones with the reduction of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) to N ...

. In 1956, he accepted a Hill Foundation Professorship and moved to the medical campus of the

. In 1959–1960, he served as

Chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

of the Biochemistry Section of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

(ACS) and in 1969–1970 as President of the American Society of Biological Chemists. Since 1963, he had been a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at

. In 1965, he became the founding director of the

Molecular Biology Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactio ...

Institute and spearheaded the construction of the building and the organization of an interdepartmental Ph.D. program. This institutional service did not diminish the creativity and originality of his research program, which led to three postulates for the binding mechanism for ATP synthesis—that energy input was not used primarily to form ATP but to promote the binding of

phosphate Phosphates are the naturally occurring form of the element phosphorus. In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthop ...

and mostly the release of tightly bound ATP; that three identical catalytic sites went through compulsory, sequential binding changes; and that the binding changes of the catalytic subunits, circularly arranged on the periphery of the enzyme, were driven by the rotation of a smaller internal subunit. Paul Boyer was

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

or associate editor of the '' Annual Review of Biochemistry'' from 1963 to 1989. He was editor of the classic series, "The Enzymes". When he worked on the series "The Enzymes", he was helped by his wife Lyda as she was a professional editor at UCLA. In 1981, he was faculty research lecturer at UCLA. In that same year, he was awarded the prestigious Tolman Medal by the Southern California Section of the

Death

Boyer died of

respiratory failure Respiratory failure results from inadequate gas exchange by the respiratory system, meaning that the arterial oxygen, carbon dioxide, or both cannot be kept at normal levels. A drop in the oxygen carried in the blood is known as hypoxemia; a r ...

on June 2, 2018, at the age of 99, less than two months shy of his 100th birthday at his

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

home.

Publications

*Dahms, A. S. & P. D. Boyer
18O-exchange Reactions Catalyzed By Sodium- and Potassium-dependent Adenosine Triphosphatases"">"Occurrence and Characteristics of ¹⁸O-exchange Reactions Catalyzed By Sodium- and Potassium-dependent Adenosine Triphosphatases"
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA),

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...

(through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (1972). *Kanazawa, T. & P. D. Boyer
"Occurrence and Characteristics of a Rapid Exchange of Phosphate Oxygens Catalyzed by Sarcoplasmic Reticulum Vesicles"
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA),

(through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (1972). *Boyer, P. D
"Isotopic Studies on Structure-function Relationships of Nucleic Acids and Enzymes. Three Year Progress Report, May 1972 — October 1975"
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA),

(through predecessor agency the Energy Research and Development Administration), (1975). *Boyer, P. D
"Energy Capture and Use in Plants and Bacteria. Final Technical Report"
University of California Los Angeles (UCLA),

, (December 31, 1993).

Awards and honors

References

* * * * *''The nobel prize in chemistry 1997''. NobelPrize.org. (n.d.). Retrieved April 11, 2023, from https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1997/boyer/biographical/.

Notes

External links

* including the Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1997 ''Energy, Life, and ATP''
Nobel Prize press release — The 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boyer, Paul D. 1918 births 2018 deaths American atheists American biochemists American Nobel laureates American people of Dutch descent American people of English descent American people of French descent American people of German descent Brigham Young University alumni Chemists from Utah Former Latter Day Saints Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Nobel laureates in Chemistry People from Provo, Utah Provo High School alumni University of Minnesota faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Annual Reviews (publisher) editors Members of the American Philosophical Society