Christian Böhmer Anfinsen Jr., Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1972

Christian Boehmer Anfinsen, Jr. (March 26, 1916 – May 14, 1995) was an American biochemist. He shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Stanford Moore and William Howard Stein for work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation (see Anfinsen's dogma).

Background

Christian Anfinsen was born in Monessen, Pennsylvania into a family of Norwegian American immigrants. The family moved to Philadelphia in the 1920s. He earned a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in 1937. While attending Swarthmore College he played varsity football and joined the Delta Upsilon Fraternity.

In 1939, he earned a master's degree in organic chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1939, The American-Scandinavian Foundation awarded Anfinsen a fellowship to develop new methods for analyzing the chemical structure of complex proteins, namely enzymes, at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1941, Anfinsen was offered a university fellowship for doctoral study in the Department of Biological Chemistry at Harvard Medical School. Anfinsen received his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1943 from Harvard Medical School. He converted to Judaism by undergoing an Orthodox conversion in 1979. In the same year he also quit smoking.

Career

In 1950, the National Heart Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, recruited Anfinsen as chief of its Laboratory of Cell physiology. In 1954, a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship enabled Anfinsen to return to the Carlsberg Laboratory for a year and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship allowed him to study at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel from 1958–59. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958.

In 1962, Anfinsen returned to Harvard Medical School as a visiting professor and was invited to become chair of the Department of Chemistry. He was subsequently appointed Chief of the Laboratory of Chemical Biology at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases (now the National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes, and Digestive and Kidney Diseases), where he remained until 1981. From 1982 until his death in 1995, Anfinsen was Professor of Biophysical Chemistry at Johns Hopkins.

Anfinsen published more than 200 original articles, mostly in the area of the relationships between structure and function in proteins. He was also a pioneer of ideas in the area of nucleic acid compaction. In 1961 he showed that ribonuclease could be refolded after denaturation while preserving enzyme activity, thereby suggesting that all the information required by protein to adopt its final conformation is encoded in its primary structure. He belonged to the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and the American Philosophical Society.

Background

Anfinsen was born in Monessen, Pennsylvania, into a family of Norwegian American immigrants. His parents were Sophie (Rasmussen) and Christian Boehmer Anfinsen, Sr., a mechanical engineer. The family moved to Philadelphia in the 1920s. He earned a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in 1937. While attending Swarthmore College he played varsity football and joined the Delta Upsilon Fraternity.

In 1939, he earned a master's degree in organic chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1939, The American-Scandinavian Foundation awarded Anfinsen a fellowship to develop new methods for analyzing the chemical structure of complex proteins, namely enzymes, at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1941, Anfinsen was offered a university fellowship for doctoral study in the Department of Biological Chemistry at Harvard Medical School. There, Anfinsen received his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1943. In 1979, he converted to Judaism, by undergoing an Orthodox conversion and that same year he quit smoking. Although Anfinsen wrote in 1985 that his feelings on religion still reflect a fifty-year period of orthodox agnosticism.

Anfinsen had three children with his first wife, Florence Kenenger, to whom he was married from 1941 to 1978. He married Libby Shulman Ely, with whom he had 4 stepchildren, in 1979.

His papers were donated to the National Library of Medicine by Libby Anfinsen between 1998 and 1999.

Career

In 1950, the National Heart Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, recruited Anfinsen as chief of its Laboratory of Cell physiology. In 1954, a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship enabled Anfinsen to return to the Carlsberg Laboratory for a year and a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship allowed him to study at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel from 1958–59. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958.

In 1962, Anfinsen returned to Harvard Medical School as a visiting professor and was invited to become chair of the Department of Chemistry. He was subsequently appointed Chief of the Laboratory of Chemical Biology at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases (now the National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes, and Digestive and Kidney Diseases), where he remained until 1981. From 1982 until his death in 1995, Anfinsen was Professor of Biophysical Chemistry at Johns Hopkins.

Anfinsen published more than 200 original articles, mostly in the area of the relationships between structure and function in proteins. He was also a pioneer of ideas in the area of nucleic acid compaction. In 1961 he showed that ribonuclease could be refolded after denaturation while preserving enzyme activity, thereby suggesting that all the information required by protein to adopt its final conformation is encoded in its amino-acid sequence. He belonged to the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters and the American Philosophical Society.

Honors received

• 1954 Rockefeller Foundation Public Service Award
• 1958 Guggenheim Fellow
• 1963 Elected to the National Academy of Sciences
• 1964 Elected to the Royal Danish Academy
• 1965 Doctor of Science, (Honorary) Swarthmore College
• 1967 Doctor of Science, (Honorary) Georgetown University
• 1969 Honorary Fellow, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel,
• 1969 Leon Lecture, University of Pennsylvania
• 1969 Hadassah Myrtle Leaf Award
• 1969 Doctor of Science, (Honorary) New York Medical College
• 1970 EMBO Lecture for Sweden
• 1970 Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford, England
• 1971-2 President of the American Society of Biological Chemists
• 1972 Jubilee Lecture, British Biochemical Society, England
• 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• 1973 Doctor of Science, (Honorary) University of Pennsylvania
• 1974 Mathers Lectures, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
• 1974 Feinberg Graduate School, Christian B. Anfinsen Scholarship established
• 1974 Scientific Advisory Committee of Weizmann Institute Chairman
• 1975 Doctor of Science (Honorary), Gustavus Adolphus College - Lecture
• 1975 Kempner Lectureship, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas
• 1975 Participant, Encounter for the Universality of UNESCO, Paris
• 1976 Bicentennial Exhibit Chosen for 20th Century Scientist, Maryland Academy of Science
• 1977 Doctor of Science, (Honorary), Brandeis University
• 1977 Naff Lectures, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky
• 1978 Doctor of Science, (Honorary), Providence College, Rhode Island
• 1978 Herbert A. Sober Memorial Lectureship
• 1978 Consultant to ABC Cancer Foundation
• 1979 Berson Memorial Lecture, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City, New York
• 1979 Fritz Lippmann Life Sciences Medal, Paris, France
• 1980 Case Institute of Technoogy, Centennial Medal
• 1981 Pontifical Academy of Science, The Vatican
• 1981 NIH Scientist Emeritus Award
• 1981 Fogarty International Symposium in honor of CBA on Contributions of Chemical Biology to Biomedical Science
• 1982 Doctor of Medicine, M.D. (Honorary), University of Naples, Italy
• 1982 Doctor of Science, (Honorary) Yeshiva University, New York City, New York
• 1984 Distinguished Scientist Lectures Series, Bard College, New York
• Theobald Smith Lecture Award, Albany College of Medicine, New York
• 1985 Hebrew University of Jerusalem Medal
• 1986 National Library of Medicine Medal, Bethesda, Maryland
• 1987 Doctor of Science (Honorary), Adelphi University, New York
• 1988 Genetic Engineering Lectures, Kon Kuk University, Seoul, Korea
• 1990 Pioneer in Science Award, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel Participant in Oslo Conference, "Anatomy of Hate", Norwegian Nobel Committee & Elie Wiesel Fund 1991 Morris Brown College Research Symposium Award, Outstanding Nobelist University of Texas Medical Branch, Centennial Symposium Medal, Galveston, Texas 1992 Protein Folding Symposium to Honor Christian B. Anfinsen, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 1993 Doctor of Science, University of Las Palmas, Canary Islands (Honorary) 1994 National Institutes of Health/Israel Alumni Association Lectureship established in honor of Christian B. Anfinsen, Rehovot, Israel: Memorial Biennial Lecture Johns Hopkins University Lectureship honoring CBA established, Baltimore, Maryland National Institutes of Health Anfinsen Lectureship established Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Distinguished Service Medal Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Superior Service Medal
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