John Howard Northrop
American biochemist
Who was John Howard Northrop?
John Howard Northrop (July 5, 1891 – May 27, 1987) was an American biochemist who, with James Batcheller Sumner and Wendell Meredith Stanley, won the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Northrop was a Professor of Bacteriology and Medical Physics, Emeritus, at University of California, Berkeley. Northrop was born in Yonkers, New York, to John Isaiah, a zoologist and instructor at Columbia University who is a member of the Havemeyer family, and Alice Rich Northrop, a teacher of botany at Hunter College. His father died in a lab explosion two weeks before John H. Northrop was born. The son was educated at Yonkers High School and Columbia University, where he earned his BA in 1912 and PhD in chemistry in 1915. During World War I, he conducted research for the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service on the production of acetone and ethanol through fermentation.
In 1929, Northrop isolated and crystallized the gastric enzyme pepsin and determined that it was a protein.
Historical significance
The award was given for these scientists' isolation, crystallization, and study of enzymes, proteins, and viruses.
Life and career timeline: John Howard Northrop
- 1891 born in Yonkers New York
- 1912 earned BA at Columbia University
- 1915 earned PhD in chemistry at Columbia University
- 1929 isolated and crystallized pepsin
- 1946 won Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- 1987 died