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Daniel E. Koshland Jr. - Noted Biochemist, Editor, Friend of Rehovot's Weizmann Institute
Remembering Professor Koshland
"Daniel E. Koshland Jr., an eminent biochemist who redesigned biology instruction at UC Berkeley and influenced national science policy and publishing as a longtime editor of Science magazine, died Monday after a stroke.
Professor Koshland, a resident of Lafayette, was 87. He died at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek, UC Berkeley announced Tuesday.
"He was one of the outstanding biochemists of the last 50 years, and he was also a lot of fun to be around," said his friend Joseph L. Goldstein, a Nobel laureate and professor of molecular genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Professor Koshland's father and namesake was a New York banker who moved West after joining Levi Strauss & Co. in 1922. The senior Koshland became vice president, president and chairman during a 57-year executive career with the San Francisco clothing company.
His son discovered at a young age that "his fascination for math, physics and chemistry exceeded his interest in jeans," Goldstein noted in a 1998 speech, when he presented Professor Koshland a Lasker Special Achievement Award in Medical Science.
He was best known among researchers for his seminal work on enzymes and their flexible interactions with their substrates, a process known as the induced-fit theory of enzyme dynamics, akin to a hand fitting into a glove as distinct from the older paradigm of rigid keys in locks.
That discovery led to a long line of research on enzymes and enzyme engineering, as well as other adaptive systems in biology, such as the role of surface receptors and regulatory proteins in bacteria.
UC Berkeley's Koshland Hall for biological research is named for him. His legacy also can be seen in the university's interdisciplinary emphasis on teaching and research in biology. He led a campus reorganization during the 1980s, spurred by the advent of genetic engineering and protein studies, that brought 11 widely scattered departments within three academic domains.
His national reputation grew during a decade at the helm of Science, one of the world's top research journals, from 1985 to 1995. He brought many innovations, including popular special editions, a streamlined system of reviewing manuscripts and expanded news coverage. Much of the current staff was hired during his tenure.
"The magazine we have today is very much the one he created in his term as editor," said Donald Kennedy, the former president of Stanford University and the journal's current editor-in-chief.
He maintained an active research lab at Cal, and published nearly 100 peer-reviewed papers, in addition to 200 editorials, while he held the Science editorship part-time. His last research paper will be published as part of a special tribute being planned by the journal, Kennedy said.
Professor Koshland was an important philanthropic supporter of science education and campus expansions at UC Berkeley and also at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, which was attended by two sons, James Koshland of Atherton and Douglas Koshland of Baltimore.
He endowed the Marian Koshland Science Museum at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., which is named for his late first wife, an immunologist who also was a prominent member of the UC Berkeley faculty.
He took on such issues as science and political campaigns and "get-rich-quick science," and once suggested scientists could gain more charisma by wearing lab coats of other colors besides white.
He received many awards, which besides the Lasker included the top academic awards from UC Berkeley as well as a National Medal of Science in 1990.
He graduated from UC Berkeley in 1941 with a degree in chemistry, after which he joined the Manhattan Project, working with Glenn Seaborg in Chicago and at Oak Ridge, Tenn., to isolate and purify the plutonium used for the first atomic bombs. He earned his doctorate at the University of Chicago, where he also met his first wife.
The couple worked together at the Brookhaven National Laboratory until 1965 when he was recruited by Cal. The question of whether to move was a controversial one in the Koshland family.
"At our family dinner table we had a brief discussion in which our five children and my wife voted 'nay' on moving, and I quoted Lincoln to say the 'ayes' have it," Professor Koshland recalled in an autobiographical sketch for the Annual Review of Biochemistry in 1996.
Following the death of his wife after 52 years of marriage, Professor Koshland married Yvonne Cyr San Jule, whom he had first met in 1940 when they were undergraduates, and who survives him.
Other survivors include his two sons; daughters Ellen Koshland of Melbourne, Australia; Phyllis (Phlyp) Koshland of Paris; and Gail Koshland of Tucson; sisters Francis K. Geballe of Woodside and Phyllis K. Friedman of Hillsborough; nine grandchildren and one great-granddaughter; three stepchildren, 12 step-grandchildren and 17 step-great-grandchildren.
A memorial service is planned for the fall.
Donations in Professor Koshland's memory can be made to the Marian Koshland Science Museum, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 20001, or to the UC Berkeley Foundation to support bioscience and energy teaching and research. Write to the UC Berkeley Foundation, Attention: Vice Chancellor-University Relations, 2080 Addison Street, #4200, Berkeley, CA 94720-4200.
Source: Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer. Daniel E. Koshland Jr. - noted biochemist, editor. SFGate.com (25 July, 2007) [FullText]
"Daniel E. Koshland Jr., an eminent biochemist who redesigned biology instruction at UC Berkeley and influenced national science policy and publishing as a longtime editor of Science magazine, died Monday after a stroke.
Professor Koshland, a resident of Lafayette, was 87. He died at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Walnut Creek, UC Berkeley announced Tuesday.
"He was one of the outstanding biochemists of the last 50 years, and he was also a lot of fun to be around," said his friend Joseph L. Goldstein, a Nobel laureate and professor of molecular genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Professor Koshland's father and namesake was a New York banker who moved West after joining Levi Strauss & Co. in 1922. The senior Koshland became vice president, president and chairman during a 57-year executive career with the San Francisco clothing company.
His son discovered at a young age that "his fascination for math, physics and chemistry exceeded his interest in jeans," Goldstein noted in a 1998 speech, when he presented Professor Koshland a Lasker Special Achievement Award in Medical Science.
He was best known among researchers for his seminal work on enzymes and their flexible interactions with their substrates, a process known as the induced-fit theory of enzyme dynamics, akin to a hand fitting into a glove as distinct from the older paradigm of rigid keys in locks.
That discovery led to a long line of research on enzymes and enzyme engineering, as well as other adaptive systems in biology, such as the role of surface receptors and regulatory proteins in bacteria.
UC Berkeley's Koshland Hall for biological research is named for him. His legacy also can be seen in the university's interdisciplinary emphasis on teaching and research in biology. He led a campus reorganization during the 1980s, spurred by the advent of genetic engineering and protein studies, that brought 11 widely scattered departments within three academic domains.
His national reputation grew during a decade at the helm of Science, one of the world's top research journals, from 1985 to 1995. He brought many innovations, including popular special editions, a streamlined system of reviewing manuscripts and expanded news coverage. Much of the current staff was hired during his tenure.
"The magazine we have today is very much the one he created in his term as editor," said Donald Kennedy, the former president of Stanford University and the journal's current editor-in-chief.
He maintained an active research lab at Cal, and published nearly 100 peer-reviewed papers, in addition to 200 editorials, while he held the Science editorship part-time. His last research paper will be published as part of a special tribute being planned by the journal, Kennedy said.
Professor Koshland was an important philanthropic supporter of science education and campus expansions at UC Berkeley and also at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, which was attended by two sons, James Koshland of Atherton and Douglas Koshland of Baltimore.
He endowed the Marian Koshland Science Museum at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., which is named for his late first wife, an immunologist who also was a prominent member of the UC Berkeley faculty.
He donated $8 million to the Weizmann Institute of Science to finance postdoctoral scholarships at the institute's Rehovot, Israel, campus. He also served many years as a senior scientific adviser.Along with his scientific eminence, Professor Koshland was a first-class wit. He styled some of his editorials as a dialogue between the journal and a "Dr. Noitall," who began each piece by claiming the introduction was "a vast understatement of my true worth."
"He had passion for science and for giving opportunities to young scientists," said Diane Portnoff,
the Weizmann Institute's executive director for major gifts.
He took on such issues as science and political campaigns and "get-rich-quick science," and once suggested scientists could gain more charisma by wearing lab coats of other colors besides white.
He received many awards, which besides the Lasker included the top academic awards from UC Berkeley as well as a National Medal of Science in 1990.
He graduated from UC Berkeley in 1941 with a degree in chemistry, after which he joined the Manhattan Project, working with Glenn Seaborg in Chicago and at Oak Ridge, Tenn., to isolate and purify the plutonium used for the first atomic bombs. He earned his doctorate at the University of Chicago, where he also met his first wife.
The couple worked together at the Brookhaven National Laboratory until 1965 when he was recruited by Cal. The question of whether to move was a controversial one in the Koshland family.
"At our family dinner table we had a brief discussion in which our five children and my wife voted 'nay' on moving, and I quoted Lincoln to say the 'ayes' have it," Professor Koshland recalled in an autobiographical sketch for the Annual Review of Biochemistry in 1996.
Following the death of his wife after 52 years of marriage, Professor Koshland married Yvonne Cyr San Jule, whom he had first met in 1940 when they were undergraduates, and who survives him.
Other survivors include his two sons; daughters Ellen Koshland of Melbourne, Australia; Phyllis (Phlyp) Koshland of Paris; and Gail Koshland of Tucson; sisters Francis K. Geballe of Woodside and Phyllis K. Friedman of Hillsborough; nine grandchildren and one great-granddaughter; three stepchildren, 12 step-grandchildren and 17 step-great-grandchildren.
A memorial service is planned for the fall.
Donations in Professor Koshland's memory can be made to the Marian Koshland Science Museum, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, D.C., 20001, or to the UC Berkeley Foundation to support bioscience and energy teaching and research. Write to the UC Berkeley Foundation, Attention: Vice Chancellor-University Relations, 2080 Addison Street, #4200, Berkeley, CA 94720-4200.
Source: Carl T. Hall, Chronicle Science Writer. Daniel E. Koshland Jr. - noted biochemist, editor. SFGate.com (25 July, 2007) [FullText]
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