The nine lives of Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. (1920–2007)

Abstract

Dan trained in inorganic chemistry as an undergraduate with Wendell Latimer at U.C. Berkeley and spent the war years in Chicago working on plutonium enrichment under the guidance of Glenn Seaborg for the Manhattan Project. A nascent interest in biology and Ph.D. studies with an inspiring young organic chemist, Frank Westheimer, tempted Dan away from inorganic and nuclear chemistry and into a lifelong passion for enzyme reaction mechanisms. Further training at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA) and a brief stint in Fritz Lipmann's laboratory led to Dan's first independent position at Brookhaven National Laboratory (Long Island, NY). During his work on the stereochemical specificity of enzyme reactions, Dan developed a deeper understanding of how an enzyme may adapt to a substrate, which led to his brilliant formulation of the induced-fit model of protein–ligand interaction.