Emanuel Margoliash (February 10, 1920 – April 10, 2008) was a biochemist who spent much of his career studying the protein cytochrome c. He is best known for his work on

molecular evolution Molecular evolution describes how Heredity, inherited DNA and/or RNA change over evolutionary time, and the consequences of this for proteins and other components of Cell (biology), cells and organisms. Molecular evolution is the basis of phylogen ...

; with Walter Fitch, he devised the Fitch-Margoliash method for constructing evolutionary trees based on

protein sequences Protein primary structure is the linear sequence of amino acids in a peptide or protein. By convention, the primary structure of a protein is reported starting from the amino-terminal (N) end to the carboxyl-terminal (C) end. Protein biosynthes ...

. He was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Biography

Margoliash was born in Cairo in 1920. He earned an M.D. from the American University of Beirut. He served as an Israeli Army medical officer during the

1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The current Constitutions of Constitution of Italy, Italy and of Constitution of New Jersey, New Jersey (both later subject to amendment) ...

, and subsequently held research positions at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

Hadassah Medical School Hadassah Medical Center () is an Israeli medical organization established in 1934 that operates two university hospitals in Jerusalem (one in Ein Karem and one in Mount Scopus) as well as schools of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology a ...

, the Nobel Institute Department of Biochemistry, the

University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...

College of Medicine, the McGill-Montreal General Hospital Research Institute,

Abbott Laboratories Abbott Laboratories is an American multinational medical devices and health care company with headquarters in Abbott Park, Illinois, in the United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate k ...

, Northwestern University, where he was chair of the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology during the 1980s. He left Abbott Laboratories to join the faculty at Northwestern University, and continued his research on cytochrome c, until Northwestern University's policies forced him to retire. He quietly enjoyed his retirement ceremonies and immediately obtained a position (with all new labs) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Margoliash's passion for cytochrome C research took him all over the world, and in 1970 he was offered the chance to dissect a

coelacanth Coelacanths ( ) are an ancient group of lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii) in the class Actinistia. As sarcopterygians, they are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods (the terrestrial vertebrates including living amphibians, reptiles, bi ...

fish and isolate its cytochrome C for sequencing. This fish which lives at great ocean depths was washed up on the shores of the

Comoros The Comoros, officially the Union of the Comoros, is an archipelagic country made up of three islands in Southeastern Africa, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city is Moroni, ...

during the war, and

de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free France, Free French Forces against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Re ...

deemed it a "French fish" and refused to allow its exportation. Margoliash went to France and with his colleagues carried out the cytochrome C isolation of the large fish, and returned with a small crystal in a small vial which represented the entire amount of cytochrome C in the unusual animal. He died in Chicago in 2008 at the age of 88.

References

1920 births American University of Beirut alumni Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem University of Utah faculty University of Illinois Chicago faculty 2008 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 20th-century American biochemists {{biochemist-stub