Gerardus Johannes Mulder or Gerrit Jan Mulder (27 December 1802 – 18 April 1880) was a Dutch organic and

analytical chemist Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to separate, identify, and quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute the entire analysis or be combined with another method. Separati ...

Life

Mulder was born in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

and earned a medical degree from

Utrecht University Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...

. He became a

reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

of chemistry in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

and in 1840 he was appointed

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

Protein

Following a suggestion by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, Mulder used the term protein in his 1838 paper, "On the composition of some animal substances" (originally in French but translated in 1839 to German). In the same publication, he also proposed that animals draw most of their protein from plants.Bulletin des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles en Néerlande (1838). pg 104
SUR LA COMPOSITION DE QUELQUES SUBSTANCES ANIMALES
/ref> Mulder "was the first to propose a theory concerning the causes of the differences between

albumin Albumin is a family of globular proteins, the most common of which are the serum albumins. All the proteins of the albumin family are water-soluble, moderately soluble in concentrated salt solutions, and experience heat denaturation. Albumins ...

casein Casein ( , from Latin ''caseus'' "cheese") is a family of related phosphoproteins ( αS1, aS2, β, κ) that are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 60% of the proteins in hum ...

, and fibrin, and other substances more or less similar to them in physical properties and in their chemical behavior when exposed to reagents. Analyses of these substances showed that their percentage contribution with respect to carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen were so similar as to suggest that they contain one common radical." This radical, a macromolecule, had formula C20 H31 N5 O12 , and was known as ''protein''. The variations in albuminous substances were attributed to peripheral bonds of protein to sulfur and/or phosphorus.

Justus Liebig Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 20 April 1873) was a German scientist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. As a professor at the ...

and his students sought to determine the structure of proteins, but until the methods of

Emil Fischer Hermann Emil Louis Fischer (; 9 October 1852 – 15 July 1919) was a German chemist and 1902 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He discovered the Fischer esterification. He also developed the Fischer projection, a symbolic way of draw ...

and

Franz Hofmeister Franz Hofmeister (30 August 1850, in Prague – 26 July 1922, in Würzburg) was an early protein scientist, and is famous for his studies of salts that influence the solubility and conformational stability of proteins. In 1902, Hofmeister became t ...

became available, the

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha a ...

decompositions were unknown.

Augustus Voelcker John Christopher Augustus Voelcker FRS (24 September 1822 – 5 December 1884) was a Royal Agricultural Society of England chemist. Voelcker was known for his methodical and precise analytical practices as applied to agricultural chemistry. He b ...

was Mulder's assistant for a year from 1846. In 1850, Mulder was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He died in Bennekom.

References

* Ihde, Aaron (1964) ''The Development of Modern Chemistry'', Harper and Row, pages 359 and 423–424.

External links

On the composition of some animal substances
Translation of parts of Mulder's article from: Mikulás Teich, ''A Documentary History of Biochemistry'', 1770-1940 (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992)
1802 births 1880 deaths Scientists from Utrecht (city) Organic chemists Dutch biochemists Dutch natural scientists Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Utrecht University faculty {{Biochemist-stub