Reporter: Modeline Nicholas Longjohn
The field of biological sciences (including molecular biology and biochemistry) has been revolutionized several times over, sometimes by painstakingly achieved discoveries such as the discovery of the DNA double Helix by Rosalind Franklin,Francis Crick, James Watson, Morris Wilkins and their associated colleagues in 1953. In the same year, German born British biochemist Prof. Sir. Hans Adolf Krebs and Fritz Lipmann were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Prof.Krebs was cited for his 1937 ground-breaking discovery of the key metabolic pathway called the tricarboxylic acid cycle or the citric acid cycle also known as Krebs’ cycle. He (with medical student, Kurt Henseleit) had previously discovered the Urea Cycle in 1932. In simple terms, the Krebs Cycle accomplishes the final stage of the conversion of sugars, fats and proteins to carbon dioxide, water and energy-rich constituents in the presence of oxygen.
Prof. Krebs’Laboratory in Oxford, United Kingdom had a core of extremely intelligent laboratory technicians and scientists, including Derek Williamson and Pat Lund. Another member of the Krebs’ laboratory was Memorial University’s very own Dr.John T. Brosnan. Dr. John Brosnan is renowned in his own right for excellent research into one-carbon metabolism, kidney and inter-organ metabolism of amino acids and proteins. With his key interests being the metabolism of amino acids(building blocks of proteins), Dr. Brosnan has published extensively on the metabolism of fourteen of the twenty amino acids. His recent works focus on the vitamin folate, and its role in one carbon metabolism.
Dr. Brosnan obtained his bachelor’s and master’s in biochemistry from the University College in Cork, Ireland and his PhD in Biochemistry from Oxford University. He carried out postdoctoral work in Toronto, before joining Memorial University in 1972 as a research professor in the department of Biochemistry. Not only is Dr. Brosnan a multi-award-winning scientist, he is also a consummate family man. He is married to fellow scientist Dr. Margaret Brosnan, and they have three children and several grandchildren.
He is an adjunct professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and served as President of the Canadian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. His other accolades include the distinguished Nutrition Leadership Award (awarded together with Dr. Margaret Brosnan) and the John Lewis Paton Distinguished Professorship.
Reminiscing on his time in the Krebs’ Lab, ‘Prof. Krebs was a very intelligent, interesting and inspiring man, who worked extremely hard and expected people he worked with to work equally as hard,’ Dr. Brosnan said.
‘The Krebs lab attracted a lot of intelligent and brilliant top biochemists and scientists at different times,’ he reminisced.