List of biochemists

A

Ab–Ah

• John Jacob Abel. American biochemist and pharmacologist. He founded and chaired the first department of pharmacology in the United States at the University of Michigan.
• Robert Abeles. American biological chemist at Brandeis University. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• John Abelson. American biologist at Caltech, with expertise in biophysics, biochemistry, and genetics, and known for work on RNA splicing.
• Sir Edward Abraham CBE, FRS. English biochemist at the University of Oxford involved in the development of penicillin and cephalosporin
• Gary Ackers. American Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Washington University in St. Louis, who worked on thermodynamic linkage analysis of biological macromolecules.
• Gilbert Smithson Adair FRS. British protein chemist at the University of Cambridge, the first to identify cooperative binding, in the context of oxygen binding to haemoglobin.
• Julius Adler. American Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, known for work on chemotaxis.
• David Agard. American Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UC San Francisco, whose research is focussed on understanding the basic principles of macromolecular structure and function. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Natalie Ahn. Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder, whose research is focussed on understanding the mechanisms of cell signalling, with a speciality in phosphorylation and cancers. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.

  Al–Am

• Bruce Alberts. American biochemist at UC San Francisco, known for his work on protein complexes that enable chromosome replication in science, public policy, and as an original author of the textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Robert Alberty. American physical biochemist at MIT, noted for many contributions to enzyme kinetics, including early studies of reactions with two substrates. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Dario Alessi. British biochemist at the University of Dundee known for work on protein kinases.
• Mary Belle Allen. American botanist at UC Berkeley known for demonstrating the role of chloroplasts in photosynthesis.
• Jorge Allende. Chilean biochemist at the University of Chile, known for contributions to the understanding of protein biosynthesis and how transfer RNA is generated. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• C. David Allis, US biologist at the Rockefeller University who worked on chromatin.
• Richard Amasino. American Professor of Biochemistry and Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who studies vernalization. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Bruce Ames. Biochemist and microbiologist at UC Berkeley. He is an expert on mutagenicity and an inventor of the Ames test. Awarded the National Medal of Science
• John E. Amoore. British biochemist and zoologist at UC Berkeley, who postulated the stereochemical theory of olfaction.

  An–At

• Rudolph John Anderson. American biochemist graduated with a PhD from Cornell University Medical College. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Thomas F. Anderson. American biophysical chemist and geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania, a pioneer in applying electron microscopy to bacteria and viruses. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Mortimer Louis Anson. American biochemist and protein chemist, the first to propose that protein folding was reversible.
• Akira Arimura. Japanese biochemist and endocrinologist at Tulane University who studied hormones.
• Shy Arkin. Israeli biochemist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, working on structural analysis of transmembrane proteins
• Judy Armitage FRS. British biochemist at Oxford University, working on motion of bacteria by flagellar rotation.
• Frances Arnold. American biochemist and biochemical engineer at Caltech, pioneer of the use of directed evolution to engineer enzymes. Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Ruth Arnon Israeli biochemist at the Weizmann Institute, who works on researching anti-cancer and influenza vaccinations. She participated in developing the multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone. President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
• Helen Asemota. Nigerian biochemist at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, who studied the molecular genetics and metabolism of the browning of yam tubers in storage.
• Gilbert Ashwell. American biochemist at the NIH, who isolated the first cell receptor.
• William Astbury FRS. British physicist and molecular biologist at the Royal Institution, University of Leeds, a pioneer in applying X-ray crystallography to biological molecules such as proteins
• Daniel Atkinson. American biochemist at UCLA known for the concept of energy charge

  B

Ba–Bee

• David Baker. American biochemist and computational biologist at the University of Washington, who studies methods to predict and design the three-dimensional structures of proteins. Nobel Prize in chemistry, 2024.
• Tania A. Baker. American biochemist at MIT, who has studied transposons and enzymes that catalyse protein unfolding. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Clinton Ballou. American biochemist at UC Berkeley, whose research focused on the metabolism of carbohydrates and the structures of microbial cell walls. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Horace Barker. American biochemist and microbiologist at UC Berkeley. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• David Bartel. American biochemist at MIT, known for work on microRNA biology. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Bonnie Bassler. American molecular biologist at Princeton, known for studies of quorum sensing, and the idea that disruption of chemical signalling can be used as an antimicrobial therapy. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Philip A. Beachy. American biochemist at Stanford, known for studies to understand the molecular mechanisms behind the growth of multicellular embryos, especially the role of the Hedgehog signalling pathway. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Jon Beckwith. American microbiologist and geneticist at Harvard who made important contributions to the study of bacterial genetics. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.

  Bee–Ber

• Lorena S. Beese. Biochemist at Duke University, known for structural biochemistry of DNA replication and protein prenylation enzymes. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Helmut Beinert. German born-American biochemist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a pioneer of and advocate for the use of electron paramagnetic resonance in biological systems. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Marlene Belfort. American biochemist at the New York State Department of Health involved in the discovery of self-splicing introns in bacteriophage. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Boris Pavlovich Belousov. Chemist and biophysicist in the Ministry of Health of the USSR who discovered the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction. Awarded the Lenin Prize.
• Myron L. Bender. American biochemist at Northwestern University, who pioneered mechanistic studies of enzymes, especially chymotrypsin and other proteases. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Stephen J. Benkovic. American bioorganic chemist at Pennsylvania State University. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Steven A. Benner. American chemist at the University of Florida known for establishing synthetic biology and paleogenetics, aas wll as contributing to understanding of the origin of life;
• Paul Berg FRS . American biochemist at Stanford, known for pioneering work involving gene splicing of recombinant DNA. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980.
• Helen M. Berman. American biochemist at Rutgers University, known for work on nucleic acids, their interactions with proteins, and also the structure of collagen.
• Claude Bernard. French physiologist and physician at the Collège de France, Paris. Introduced concept of homeostasis. Foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
• Carolyn Bertozzi. American chemist known for her work spanning chemistry and biology. Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2022.

  Bi–Bo

• Klaus Biemann. Austrian chemist at MIT, the "father of organic mass spectrometry" and particularly noted for his role in advancing protein sequencing with tandem mass spectrometry. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Ethel Ronzoni Bishop. American biochemist and physiologist at Washington University in St. Louis who studied carbohydrate metabolism.
• Pamela J. Bjorkman. American biochemist at Caltech, who studies immune recognition of viral pathogens. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Elizabeth Blackburn AC FRS FAA FRSN. Australian-American biochemist, Nobel Laureate, co-discoverer of telomerase.
• Konrad Emil Bloch FRS. German-American biochemist at Harvard, who worked on the mechanism and regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1964.
• Elkan Blout. American biochemist at Harvard, who worked on peptide structure and conformation, including cyclic peptides. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• David Mervyn Blow FRS. British X-ray crystallographer at Imperial College London, who worked on protein structure.
• Tom Blundell, FRS. British biochemist at the University of Cambridge, structural biologist, and science administrator.
• Aaron Bodansky. Russian-born American biochemist at the Hospital for Joint Diseases, New York, specializing in the area of calcium metabolism.
• Paul D. Boyer. American biochemist, at UCLA who studied ATP synthase. Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.

  Br

• Roscoe Brady. American biochemist at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, who identified many enzyme defects responsible for metabolic diseases. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Herman Branson. American physicist and biochemist who participated at Caltech in the discovery of the α-helix
• Sydney Brenner. South African biochemist at Cambridge, and later Berkeley, known for work on the genetic code and more recently for establishing Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism. Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine
• Roger Brent. American molecular biologist at the University of Washington known for work on gene regulation and systems biology
• Kenneth Breslauer. American biochemist at Rutgers University, who has studied DNA damage and repair, including why certain mutations escape repair and result in cancer.
• Bernard Brodie. American biochemist and pharmacologist at the National Heart Institute, regarded as the founder of modern pharmacology. He studied drug metabolism and the mechanisms of drug effects. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Adrian John Brown FRS. British expert on brewing and malting at the University of Birmingham. He was a pioneer of enzyme kinetics and proposed an explanation of enzyme saturation.
• Patrick O. Brown. American biochemist at Stanford. Among numerous advances in experimental techniques he has developed experimental methods for using DNA microarrays to investigate the basic principles of genome organization. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
• Thomas Bruice. American bioorganic chemist at UC Santa Barbara, pioneering researcher in chemical biology. Member Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.