Harland Goff Wood (September 2, 1907 – September 12, 1991) was an American biochemist notable for proving
/ref> ttp://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=WHG WOOD, HARLAND GOFF - The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History/ref> in 1935 that animals, humans and bacteria fixed carbon from

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is trans ...

in the metabolic pathway to

succinate Succinic acid () is a dicarboxylic acid with the chemical formula (CH2)2(CO2H)2. The name derives from Latin ''succinum'', meaning amber. In living organisms, succinic acid takes the form of an anion, succinate, which has multiple biological ro ...

. (Previously CO₂ fixation had been thought to occur only in plants and a few unusual autotrophic bacteria.)

Awards and honours

Wood was a recipient of the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

. He was on the President's Science Advisory Committee under Presidents

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

and

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

. He was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

, and of the Biochemical Society of Japan. He was also first director of the department of biochemistry at the School of Medicine and dean of sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Chronology

* 1907: born in Delavan, MN, to Inez Goff and William Clark Wood * 1931: B.A.

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

* 1935: Ph.D.

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...

* 1936-1943: taught

Bacteriology Bacteriology is the branch and specialty of biology that studies the morphology, ecology, genetics and biochemistry of bacteria as well as many other aspects related to them. This subdivision of microbiology involves the identification, classificat ...

* 1943-1946: taught

Physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

* 1946-67: director of the Department of

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 and ...

at the School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Harland Goff 1907 births 1991 deaths Macalester College alumni University of Minnesota faculty Case Western Reserve University faculty Princeton University faculty 20th-century American biochemists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences National Medal of Science laureates Presidents of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology