Transient Intermediates in Enzymology, 1964–2008

Abstract

I was born to John and Inez Frey in Plain City, Ohio, on November 14, 1935, and I received primary and secondary education in the local public schools. My father worked in seasonally complementary trades as a sheep shearer and painting contractor. He hired me in the contracting business during school breaks through junior and senior high school and college. He instilled in me the values of hard work and uncompromising honesty, which have served me well. My mother managed the local office of the General Telephone Company. I have been happily married to Carolyn Scott Frey since 1961. We have two daughters, Suzanne and Cynthia, and three granddaughters, Samantha, Carrie, and Bonnie. I served in the United States Army (1954–1956), and I was educated in chemistry at The Ohio State University (B.S., 1959). I was a chemist in the United States Public Health Service in 1960–1963. I did graduate work at the University of Cincinnati Evening College until 1964 and then at the University of Michigan and Brandeis University. I received my Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Brandeis University under Robert H. Abeles in 1968. I was a postdoctoral fellow in chemistry at Harvard University under Frank H. Westheimer in 1968. Professor Abeles inspired me to become a biological chemist; he and Professor Westheimer trained me to address significant problems by critical and imaginative methods. I established my research program at The Ohio State University in 1969 as an assistant professor of chemistry and progressed to professor of chemistry in 1979. In 1981, I moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a professor of biochemistry and the Institute for Enzyme Research. I retired in 2008.