Charles Tanford

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Charles Tanford is an author and a retired research chemist, who currently resides in England. He has written technical works and popular books about science.

Contents

[edit] Life

He was born in 1921 in Halle, Germany. His family moved to England in the 1930s. He attended college in the United States, starting in 1939. After a long and successful academic career in the United States, he moved back to England.[1] [2]

[edit] Education and academic career

Charles Tanford attended college in the United States, graduating from New York University in chemistry in 1943. In 1947 he received his Ph.D. from Princeton University, with a thesis on how gasses burn. He then spent two years at Harvard University Medical School, where he changed his research focus to proteins. After that, he was hired as an assistant professor by the University of Iowa, where he was promoted to assistant professor in 1954 and full professor in 1959. Duke University hired him as professor of physical biochemistry in 1960. In 1970 he was named James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry. He moved to the department of physiology in 1980.

Tanford retired in 1988, and is currently James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Cell Biology at Duke University.

[edit] Scientific Achievements

He is credited with the "Tanford-Pease theory of burning velocity". It has been said that he coined the term "hydrophobic effect".

[edit] Honors

Charles Tanford was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1956.[3] In 1972 he became a member of the [[United States National Academy of Sciences |National Academy of Sciences]] (Biophysics and computational biology). [4] In 1984 he received the Alexander von Humboldt prize.

[edit] Partial bibliography

Tanford, Charles (1961). Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. 

Tanford, Charles (1973). The Hydrophobic Effect: Formation of Micelles and Biological Membranes. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc.. ISBN 9780471844600. 

Tanford, Charles (1989). [google book Ben Franklin Stilled the Waves: An Informal History of Pouring Oil on Water with Reflections on the Ups and Downs of Scientific Life in General]. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-0876-2. 

Tanford, Charles (1992). The Scientific Traveler: A Guide to the People, Places, and Institutions of Europe. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780471555667. 

Tanford, Charles; Jacqueline Reynolds (2003). Nature's robots: A History of Proteins. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-850466-7. 

Tanford, Charles (2004). Ben Franklin stilled the waves: An informal history of pouring oil on water with reflections on the ups and downs of scientific life in general. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280494-4. 

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Kresge, Nicole; Nicole Kresge, Robert D. Simoni, and Robert L. Hill (January 25, 2008). "Amino Acid Solubility and Hydrophobic Interactions in Proteins: the Work of Charles Tanford". J. Biol. Chem 283 (4): e3-e4. 
  2. ^ Tanford, Charles (2003). COMPREHENSIVE BIOCHEMISTRY. VOLUME 42. A HISTORY OF BIOCHEMISTRY. Selected Topics in the History of Biochemistry. Personal Recollections. VII. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1 - 52. ISBN 0444509240. Chapter 1: "Fifty Years In the World of Proteins"
  3. ^ Fellows whose last names begin with T. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved on 2008-03-31.
  4. ^ National Academy of Sciences:. Retrieved on 2008-04-02. Directory search
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