James B. Sumner

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James B. Sumner

James Batcheller Sumner (November 19, 1887 – August 12, 1955) was an American chemist

Chemist

A chemist is a scientist trained in the science of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density, acidity, size and shape....
. He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Pri...
in 1946 with John Howard Northrop

John Howard Northrop

John Howard Northrop was an American biochemist who won, with James Batcheller Sumner and Wendell Meredith Stanley, the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry....
and Wendell Meredith Stanley

Wendell Meredith Stanley

Wendell Meredith Stanley was an United States biochemistry, virology and Nobel laureate....
.

er graduated from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
with a bachelor's degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course or major that generally lasts for three, four, or in some cases and countries, five or six years....
in 1910 where he was acquainted with prominent chemists Roger Adams

Roger Adams

Roger Adams was an United States organic chemistry. He is best-known for the eponymous Adams' catalyst, but also greatly influenced graduate school in America, taught over 250 Doctor of Philosophy students and postgraduate students, and served the U.S....
, Farrington Daniels

Farrington Daniels

Farrington Daniels , an American physical chemist, is considered one of the pioneers of the modern direct use of solar energy....
, Frank C. Whitmore

Frank C. Whitmore

Frank Clifford Whitmore , nicknamed "Rocky", was a prominent chemist who submitted significant evidence for the existence of carbocation mechanisms in organic chemistry....
, James Bryant Conant

James Bryant Conant

James Bryant Conant was a chemist, educational administrator, and government official. He was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1893 and graduated from the Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1910....
and Charles Loring Jackson

Charles Loring Jackson

Charles Loring Jackson was the first significant organic chemist in the United States. He brought organic chemistry to the United States from Germany and educated a generation of American organic chemists....
. In 1912, he went to study biochemistry

Biochemistry

Biochemistry is the study of the chemistry processes in living organisms. It deals with the structure and function of cellular components such as proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and other biomolecules....
in Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School is one of the graduate schools of Harvard University and currently the #1 medical school in America, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report....
and obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1914 with Otto Folin

Otto Folin

Otto Knut Olof Folin was a Sweden-born United States chemist who is best known for his groundbreaking work on practical micromethods for the determination of the constituents of protein-free blood filtrates and the discovery of creatine phosphate in muscles whilst working at Harvard University....
. He then worked as Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University located in Ithaca, New York, USA, is a private university with four Statutory college. Its two medical campuses are in New York City and Education City, Qatar....
in Ithaca,NY.

as at Cornell where Sumner began his research into isolating enzyme

Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalysis chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called Substrate , and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products....
s in pure form; a feat which had never been achieved before.

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Encyclopedia

James Batcheller Sumner (November 19, 1887 – August 12, 1955) was an American chemist

Chemist

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

John Howard Northrop

John Howard Northrop was an American biochemist who won, with James Batcheller Sumner and Wendell Meredith Stanley, the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry....
and Wendell Meredith Stanley

Wendell Meredith Stanley

Wendell Meredith Stanley was an United States biochemistry, virology and Nobel laureate....
.

Biography

Sumner graduated from Harvard University

Harvard University

Bachelor's degree

Roger Adams

Farrington Daniels

Farrington Daniels , an American physical chemist, is considered one of the pioneers of the modern direct use of solar energy....
, Frank C. Whitmore

Frank C. Whitmore

Frank Clifford Whitmore , nicknamed "Rocky", was a prominent chemist who submitted significant evidence for the existence of carbocation mechanisms in organic chemistry....
, James Bryant Conant

James Bryant Conant

Charles Loring Jackson

Biochemistry

Harvard Medical School

Otto Folin

Cornell University

Cornell University located in Ithaca, New York, USA, is a private university with four Statutory college. Its two medical campuses are in New York City and Education City, Qatar....
in Ithaca,NY.

Research

It was at Cornell where Sumner began his research into isolating enzyme

Enzyme

Urease

Urease is an enzyme that catalysis the hydrolysis of urea into carbon dioxide and ammonia. The reaction occurs as follows:In 1926 James Sumner showed that urease is a protein....
. Sumner's work was unsuccessful for many years and many of his colleagues were doubtful, believing that what he was trying to achieve was impossible, but in 1926 he demonstrated that urease could be isolated and crystal

Crystal

A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions....
lized. He was also able to show by chemical tests that his pure urease was a protein

Protein

Proteins are organic compounds made of amino acids arranged in a linear chain and joined together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of adjacent amino acid Residue ....
. This was the first experimental proof that an enzyme is a protein, a controversial question at the time.

His successful research brought him to full professorship at Cornell in 1929. From 1924 on his laboratory was located on the second floor of the new dairy science building,Stocking Hall, at Cornell where he did his Nobel prize winning research. In 1937 he succeeded in isolating and crystallizing a second enzyme, catalase

Catalase

Catalase is a common enzyme found in nearly all living organisms which are exposed to oxygen, where it functions to catalyst the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide to water and oxygen....
. By this time, John Howard Northrop

John Howard Northrop

John Howard Northrop was an American biochemist who won, with James Batcheller Sumner and Wendell Meredith Stanley, the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry....
of the Rockefeller Institute had obtained other crystalline enzymes by similar methods, starting with pepsin

Pepsin

Pepsin is an enzyme that is released by the gastric chief cells in the stomach and which degrades food proteins into peptides. Pepsin was discovered in 1836 by Theodor Schwann who also coined this enzyme's name from the Greek language word pepsis, meaning digestion ....
in 1929. It had become clear that Sumner had devised a general crystallization method for enzymes, and also that all enzymes are proteins.

Honours and awards

In 1937, he was given a Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are United States Grant s that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes multiple awards in each of two separate compe...
and he spent five months in Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
working with Professor Theodor Svedberg

Theodor Svedberg

Theodor H. E. Svedberg was a Sweden chemist and Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work with colloids supported the theories of Brownian motion put forward by Albert Einstein and the Polish geophysics Marian Smoluchowski....
. Also that year, he was awarded the Scheele Medal in Stockholm

Stockholm

is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish Government of Sweden, the Parliament of Sweden, and the official residence of the Swedish Monarchy of Sweden....
.

Both Sumner and Northrop shared the Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize , established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Nobel Peace Prize in 1901....
in 1946 for crystallization of enzymes. Sumner was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1948. Sumner died aged 67 of cancer on August 12 1955.

External links

Sumner's
Sumner's Nobel Lecture
Sumner's