Paul D. Boyer

Paul D. Boyer (b. 1918 in Provo, Utah) is Professor Emeritus of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). He shared half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997 with John Walker (b. 1941), MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England, for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). [The other half of the 1997 chemistry Nobel Prize went to Professor Jens C. Skou (b. 1918) of Aarhus University, Denmark, for the first discovery of an ion-transporting enzyme, Na , IC-ATPase. ] 

Paul Boyer obtained his B.S. in chemistry in 1939 from Brigham Young University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1941 and 1943, both from the University of Wisconsin. Following a professorship at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Boyer moved to UCLA in 1963. He founded the Molecular Biology Institute at UCLA in 1965. To mention but a few of Dr. Boyer s numerous distinctions, he has been a Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A., has received the Rose Award of the American Society of Biochemistry, and served as editor of the 18-volume treatise The Enzymes [Third Edition, Academic Press, New York, 1971-1990]. 

We recorded our conversation in Anaheim, California, on March 22, 1999, during the Spring National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. Before the interview, 1 attended Dr. Boyer s lecture to high 

Could you please summarize the research that led to your Nobel Prize. 

At the time I was in graduate school, it was recognized that living cells capture energy from oxidation of foodstuffs by making adenosine triphosphate (ATP) from adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate. The ATP is then used in a myriad of functions — muscle contraction, nerve, brain, and kidney function, metabolic syntheses, and solute transport. How this oxidative phosphorylation occurrs remained for many years a major unsolved problem in biochemistry. 

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Paul D. Boyer and John E. Walker Chemistry Mechanism of ATP synthesis... 

For review and evidence on ETS and OxPhos see M. Saraste Science 283 (5 March 1999) pp 1488-93 for ATPase motor see Paul D. Boyer (18 Nov 1999) "What matkes ATP synthase spin " Nature 402 247-8.)... 

Paul D. Boyer, John E. Walker Enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of ATP. 

Copyright renewed 1991 by Paul D. Boyer, Henry Lardy and Karl Myrback All Rights Reserved. 

Vol. 19 edited by David S. Sigman, Paul D. Boyer. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 

In 1997, Paul D. Boyer, John E. Walker, and Jens C. Skou (1918- ) shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Skou, at Aarhus University in Denmark, discovered during the 1950s and 60s the mechanism whereby energy derived from ATP is used to pump Na and K ions across cell membranes. Inside cells there is high K concentration and low Na concentration while the reverse is true in extracellular fluids. Energy is required to keep each of these intra- and extracellular gradients from disappearing. The key enzyme involved in this process, Na /K -ATPase was finally isolated in chemically stable form from cell membranes in 1980. 

Paul D. Boyer, John E. Walker and Jens C. Skou for the elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and the first discoveiy of an iontransporting enzyme, Na, -ATPase. 

Discovery and characterization of the actual molecular pump that establishes the sodium and potassium concentration gradient (Na > -ATPase) earned Jens Skou (Aarhus University, Denmark) half of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The other half went to Paul D. Boyer (UCLA) and John E. Walker (Cambridge) for elucidating the enzymatic mechanism of ATP synthesis. 

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