| RefNo | EC/1992/44 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Jencks, William Platt: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Date | 1990 |
| Description | Certificate of Candidate for Election to Foreign Membership. Citation typed |
| Citation | Bill Jencks has been for over 30 years one of the world's leading bioorganic chemists, and the outstanding figure in the area of bioorganic mechanism (the study of the detailed chemical mechanisms of reactions of biochemical importance). The primary objective of his work is an understanding at the molecular level of the extraordinary efficiency of enzyme catalysis, and his contribution in opening up and defining this new field is unsurpassed. His work has revolutionised the way we think about this important area. He has taught us that to achieve their astonishing catalytic efficiencies, enzymes must make provision for even the smallest chemical and physical transformations involved in their reactions. This understood, everything they do can be explained in terms of recognisable chemical principles. Accordingly he has over the years submitted organic reactions in solution in the absence of enzymes to a level of scrutiny deeper and more thorough than ever before. His monumental body of work is characterised by unique insight, meticulous and exhaustive experiment, and logical argument so original and penetrating that we often must change the way we think about familiar topics before we can fully appreciate his interpretations.
Through his papers, and his classic text 'Catalysis in Chemistry and Biochemistry' Jencks has influenced the way a whole generation of biochemists think about reaction mechanism. And as he has touched on more and more different reactions his influence has spread more and more widely among chemists, to the point where it is scarcely possible to discuss reaction mechanisms in solution without using his ideas. He has made specific, fundamental, contributions to our understanding of alkyl, acyl and phosphoryl group transfer reactions, elimination and addition reactions, transamination reactions, general acid-base catalysis, and proton transfer processes in general. In the course of this work he has developed a powerful unifying approach to reaction mechanism, based on the lifetimes of unstable intermediates in solution, which allows us to understand why particular reaction pathways are followed, and is likely to form the basis of new thinking in the area for the foreseeable future. His thinking also dominates the long-running discussion of the contribution of proximity to the efficiency of (intramolecular and) enzymic catalysis. But potentially his most far-reaching contribution to biochemistry is his work on the mechanisms which convert the chemical energy of ATP to mechanical and osmotic work (such as muscle contraction and active transport). The coupling between the hydrolysis of ATP and movement can be accounted for by changes in the catalytic specificity of the enzymes that carry out these reactions in different states of the system. This results in a controlled alternation of chemical and vectorial steps, so that neither can occur in the absence of the other. This simple mechanism is consistent with the experimental work of Jencks and others on the calcium pump of the sarcoplasmic reticulum.
Jencks' work spans an enormous range, from classical enzymology through to the physical chemistry of solutions. His intellectual achievement is seminal and unsurpassed. To take one famous example: in his book, published over twenty years ago, he enunciates in simple terms the theory of the catalytic antibody, which was proved successful only in 1986. Happily, his his [sic] sixties, he remains just as productive and original a thinker. |
| AccessStatus | Closed |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA4664 | Jencks; William Platt (1927 - 2007) | 1927 - 2007 |