Melvin Ellis Calvin (April 8, 1911 - January 8, 1997) was an American chemist most famed for discovering the Calvin cycle along with Andrew Benson and James Bassham, for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He spent most of his five-decade career at the University of California, Berkeley.
Calvin was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His father was Lithuanian and his mother Georgian. As a small child, Calvin's family moved to Detroit; he graduated from Central High School in 1928[1]. Melvin Calvin earned his Bachelor of Science from the Michigan College of Mining and Technology (now known as Michigan Technological University) in 1931 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1935. He then spent the next four years doing postdoctoral work at the University of Manchester. He married Genevieve Jemtegaard in 1942, and they had three children, two daughters and a son.
Calvin joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 1937 and was promoted to Professor of Chemistry in 1947. End 1950s he was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research. In 1963 he was given the additional title of Professor of Molecular Biology. He was founder and Director of the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics and simultaneously Associate Director of Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, where he conducted much of his research until his retirement in 1980.
Using the carbon-14 isotope as a tracer, Calvin and his team mapped the complete route that carbon travels through a plant during photosynthesis, starting from its absorption as atmospheric carbon dioxide to its conversion into carbohydrates and other organic compounds.[2][3] In doing so, the Calvin group showed that sunlight acts on the chlorophyll in a plant to fuel the manufacturing of organic compounds, rather than on carbon dioxide as was previously believed. In his final years of active research, he studied the use of oil-producing plants as renewable sources of energy. He also spent many years testing the chemical evolution of life and wrote a book on the subject that was published in 1969.[4]
References
1. ^ http://www.bookrags.com/biography/melvin-calvin/
2. ^ CALVIN, M (1956), "[The photosynthetic cycle.]", Bull. Soc. Chim. Biol. 38 (11): 1233–44, 1956 Dec 7, PMID 13383309
3. ^ BARKER, S A; BASSHAM, J A; CALVIN, M; QUARCK, U C (1956), "Intermediates in the photosynthetic cycle.", Biochim. Biophys. Acta 21 (2): 376–7, 1956 Aug, doi:10.1016/0006-3002(56)90022-1, PMID 13363921
4. ^ Calvin, Melvin. Chemical evolution: molecular evolution towards the origin of living systems on the earth and elsewhere. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969. ISBN 0198553420.
Publications
* Calvin, M. and A. A. Benson."The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (March 8, 1948).
* Stepka, W., Benson, A. A., and M. Calvin. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis II. Amino Acids", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (May 25, 1948).
* Benson, A. A. and M. Calvin. "Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis III.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (June 1, 1948).
* Calvin, M. and A. A. Benson "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis IV. The Identity and Sequence of the Intermediates in Sucrose Synthesis.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (December 14, 1948).
* Benson, A. A., Bassham, J. A., Calvin, M., Goodale, T. C., Haas, V. A. and W. Stepka. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis V. Paper Chromatography and Radioautography of the Products.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (June 13, 1949).
* Calvin, M. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis VI.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (June 30, 1949).
* Benson, A. A. and M. Calvin. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis VII. Respiration and Photosynthesis.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (July 21, 1949).
* Bassham, J. A., Benson, A. A. and M. Calvin. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis VIII. The Role of Malic Acid.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (January 25, 1950).
* Badin, E. J.and M. Calvin. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis IX. Photosynthesis, Photoreduction, and the Hydrogen-Oxygen-Carbon Dioxide Dark Reaction.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (February 1, 1950).
* Calvin, M., Bassham, J. A., Benson, A. A., Lynch, V., Ouellet, C., Schou, L., Stepka, W. and N. E. Tolbert. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis X. Carbon Dioxide Assimilation in Plants.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (April 1, 1950).
* Schou, L., Benson, A. A., Bassham, J. A. and M. Calvin. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis XI. The Role of Glycolic Acid.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (September 11, 1950).
* Calvin, M., Bassham, J. A., Benson, A. A., Kawaguchi, S., Lynch, V. H., Stepka, W. and N. E. Tolbert. " The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis XIV.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (June 30, 1951).
* Benson, A. A., Bassham, J. A., Calvin, M., Hall, A. G., Hirsch, H., Kawaguchi, S., Lynch, V. and N. E. Tolbert. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis XV. Ribulose and Sedoheptulose.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (January 1952).
* Benson, A. A., Kawaguchi, S., Hayes, P. and M. Calvin. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis XVI. Kinetic Relationships of the Intermediates in Steady State Photosynthesis.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (June 5, 1952).
* Buchanan, J. G., Bassham, J. A., Benson, A. A., Bradley, D. F., Calvin, M., Daus, L. L., Goodman, M., Hayes, P. M., Lynch, V. H., Norris, L. T. and A. T. Wilson. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis XVII. Phosphorus Compounds as Intermediates in Photosynthesis.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (July 8, 1952).
* Buchanan, J. G., Lynch, V. H., Benson, A. A., Calvin, M. and D. F. Bradley. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis XVIII. The Identification of Nucleotide Coenzymes.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (January 19, 1953).
* Calvin, M. and P. Massini. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis XX. The Steady State.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (September 1952).
* Calvin, M. "Photosynthesis: The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis and the Primary Quantum Conversion Act of Photosynthesis.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (November 22, 1952).
* Bassham, J. A., Benson, A. A., Kay, L. D. Harris, A. Z., Wilson, A. T. and Calvin, M. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis XXI. The Cyclic Regeneration of Carbon Dioxide Acceptor.", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (October 1, 1953).
* Bassham, J. A. and M. Calvin. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Lawrence Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (October 1960).
* Calvin, M. "The Path of Carbon in Photosynthesis (Nobel Prize Lecture).", Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California Radiation Laboratory-Berkeley, United States Department of Energy (through predecessor agency the Atomic Energy Commission), (December 11, 1961).
External links
* Biography and Bibliographic Resources, from the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, United States Department of Energy
* Nobel speech and biographmems/mcalvin.html Tribute by Glenn Seaborg and Andrew Benson
* research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants
* Biographical memoir by Glenn Seaborg and Andrew Benson
* U.S. Patent 4427511 Melvin Calvin - Photo-induced electron transfer method
* Encyclopedia Britannica Article
List of chemists