My thesis was on kinetics studies with the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase. When that was finished, I was granted a British Council Fellowship to work under the supervision of Malcolm Dixon.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I began my thesis research at Harvard by working with a team in the laboratory of William N. Lipscomb, a Nobel chemistry Laureate, in 1976, on the structure of carboxypeptidase A. I did postdoctoral studies with David Blow at the MRC lab of Molecular Biology in Cambridge studying chymotrypsin.
This time at Birmingham turned me into a general biologist, and ever since then I have always tried to take a biological approach to any research project that I have undertaken.
After qualifying for a B.Sc. in pharmacology, I spent a few months in Sheffield University as a research worker in the pharmacology department but then went back to Oxford to the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research in order to study for a D. Phil. with Dr. Geoffrey Dawes.
My doctoral work was completed by the end of 1950 and, at the age of twenty-two, I joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an instructor in chemistry under the distinguished chemists Roger Adams and Carl S. Marvel.
Later in the fifties I got involved in kinetic studies using my long forgotten math background.
During the summer of 1963 between my junior and senior years, I began a research project on hypothermia in the Department of Surgery with Sidney Wolfson. I quickly became fascinated by the project and continued working on it throughout my senior year.
After taking my B.A. degree in 1939 I remained at the University for a further year to take an advanced course in Biochemistry, and surprised myself and my teachers by obtaining a first class examination result.
I abandoned chemistry to concentrate on mathematics and physics. In 1942, I travelled to Cambridge to take the scholarship examination at Trinity College, received an award and entered the university in October 1943.
I chose biochemistry as my major and graduated after 4 years with an Honours degree in Biochemistry. During that time, I had come to love biochemistry research, although I was just getting my feet wet in laboratory research.
The war project at Stanford was essentially completed, and I accepted an offer of an Assistant Professorship at the University of Minnesota, which had a good biochemistry department.