Abstract
The word “protein” is derived from the Greek word “protos,” meaning “of prime importance.” Proteins are involved in a variety of functions, all of which are essential to life. Proteins give strength and elasticity to skin and blood vessels. In the blood, they serve as protectors in the form of antibodies or as long-distance transporters of oxygen and lipids; in the nervous system, they form part of the communications network by acting as neurotransmitters; and throughout the body, they direct the work of repair, construction, and energy conversion.
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Notes
- 1.
Gerardus Johannes Mulder (1802–1880), a Dutch organic and analytical chemist.
- 2.
Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779–1848), a Swedish chemist who worked out the modern technique of chemical formula notation.
- 3.
Carl von Voit (1831–1908), a German physiologist and dietitian.
- 4.
James Batcheller Sumner (1887–1955), an American chemist who shared the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1946 with John Howard Northrop and Wendell Meredith Stanley.
- 5.
Frederick Sanger, an English biochemist and a two-time Nobel laureate in chemistry.
- 6.
Max Ferdinand Perutz (1914–2002), an Austrian-born British molecular biologist who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for chemistry with John Kendrew for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins.
- 7.
Sir John Cowdery Kendrew (1917–1997), an English biochemist and crystallographer who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for chemistry with Max Perutz; their group at the Cavendish Laboratory investigated the structure of heme-containing proteins.
- 8.
Hermann Emil Fischer (1852–1919), a German chemist and 1902 recipient of the Nobel Prize for chemistry.
- 9.
Edmond Fischer, a Swiss biochemist, and his collaborator Edwin G. Krebs (1918–2009), an American biochemist, shared the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1992 for describing how reversible phosphorylation works.
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Flammer, J., Mozaffarieh, M., Bebie, H. (2013). Proteins. In: Basic Sciences in Ophthalmology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32261-7_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32261-7_16
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