Up for auction "Nobel Prize in Medicine" Edwin Krebs Hand Signed 3X5 Card.This item is
certified authentic by Todd Mueller Autographs and comes with their Certificate
of Authenticity. ES-8256 Edwin Gerhard Krebs (June 6, 1918 –
December 21, 2009) was an American biochemist. He received the Albert
Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize of Columbia University in
1989 together with Alfred Gilman and,
together with his collaborator Edmond H. Fischer, was awarded the Nobel Prize
in Physiology or Medicine in 1992 for describing how
reversible phosphorylation works
as a switch to activate proteins and regulate various
cellular processes. Edwin Krebs is not to be confused with Hans Adolf Krebs (1900–1981), who was also a Nobel
Prize–winning biochemist and who discovered the citric acid cycle, which is also known as the Krebs cycle. Krebs
was born in Lansing, Iowa, the third
child of William Carl Krebs, a Presbyterian minister and Louise Helen (Stegeman) Krebs.
The family moved frequently due to the nature of his father's work, though they
settled in Greenville, Illinois when
Krebs was six and remained there until his father's unexpected death in 1933.
Louise Krebs decided to move her family to Urbana, Illinois, where Krebs's elder brothers were attending
the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Krebs attended Urbana High School,
and enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1936. In his
fourth year of study Krebs had decided to either pursue a higher degree
in organic chemistry or
study medicine. Receiving a scholarship to attend Washington University
School of Medicine in St. Louis, he chose the
latter. The School of Medicine afforded Krebs the opportunity to train as a
physician as well as to gain experience in medical research. Following
graduation in 1943, he undertook an 18-month residency at Barnes Hospital in
St. Louis and then went on active duty as a medical officer in the Navy. Krebs was discharged
from the Navy in 1946 and was unable to immediately return to hospital work; he
was advised to study basic science instead. He chose to study biochemistry and was postdoctoral fellow to Carl and Gerty Cori, working on the interaction of protamine with rabbit muscle phosphorylase. At the completion of his two years' study,
Krebs decided to continue his career as a biochemist. In 1948 Krebs accepted a
position as assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington, Seattle.[1] When Edmond H. Fischer arrived at the Department in 1953, the
pair decided to work on the enzymology of phosphorylase. During the course of their study they were able
to observe the mechanism by which interconversion of the two forms of
phosphorylase takes place: reversible protein phosphorylation. Explained
simply, in reversible protein phosphorylation a protein kinase takes a phosphate group from adenosine triphosphate (ATP)
and attaches it to a specific site on a protein, introducing both extra mass
and negative charge at that site. This can alter the protein's shape and turn
its function in a biological process up or down, either by changing its
activity or its ability to bind to another protein. The protein can be
converted back to its original state by a protein phosphatase that removes the phosphate. This cycle
controls numerous metabolic processes, and plays a central role in the
regulation of cell division, shape, and motility. Derangement of specific
protein phosphorylation pathways is important in human disease, including cancer
and diabetes. Fischer and Krebs were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or
Medicine in 1992 for the discovery of reversible protein phosphorylation, |