Donald Dexter Van Slyke (March 29, 1883 – May 4, 1971), nicknamed Van, was a Dutch American biochemist. His achievements included the publication of 317 journal articles and 5 books, as well as numerous awards, among them the National Medal of Science and the first AMA Scientific Achievement Award. The Van Slyke determination, a test of amino acids, is named after him.Donald D. van Slyke (1910) "Eine Methode zur quantitativen Bestimmung der aliphatischen Aminogruppen; einige Anwenungen derselben in der Chemi der Proteine, des Harns und der Enzyme" (A method for the quantitative determination of aliphatic amino groups: some applications of it in the chemistry of proteins, urine, and enzymes), Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, 43 : 3170-3181.

Early days and education Van Slyke was born in Pike, New York on March 29, 1883. He completed his BA in 1905 and PhD in 1907 both at the University of Michigan, his father's alma mater. His PhD studies were performed under Moses Gomberg.

Post-doctoral study Van Slyke took up a post-doctoral position at the Rockefeller Institute in 1907, under Phoebus Levene. Levene also arranged for him to spend one year in Berlin under Hermann Emil Fischer in 1911. His early work focused on determining the amino acid composition of proteins. A major achievement during this time was the discovery of the amino acid hydroxylysine.

Urease Work with G. E. Cullen on urease led to a mechanism that yields a kinetic equation observationally indistinguishable from the Henri–Michaelis–Menten equation, but based on different assumptions. Whereas Henri, and later Michaelis and Menten, treated the binding of substrate to free enzyme to produce an enzyme–substrate complex as an equilibrium, Van Slyke and Cullen treated it as an irreversible reaction:

Enzyme + substrate → enzyme–substrate complex → enzyme + product

Effectively, therefore, they assumed a steady-state process. Their equation for the rate at substrate concentration ,

resembles the Henri–Michaelis–Menten equation but the constant in the denominator is interpreted differently.

Clinical chemistry In 1914, Van Slyke was appointed chief chemist of the newly founded Rockefeller Institute Hospital, where he played a key part in developing the field of clinical chemistry. His work focused especially on the measurement of gas and electrolyte levels in tissues, for which he is considered to be one of the founders of modern quantitative blood chemistry. He is also considered by many to have first popularised the term "clinical chemistry" in his two-volume work Quantitative Clinical Chemistry, co-published with John P. Peters. The two-volume work was widely accepted in the medical world as the "Bible" of quantitative clinical chemistry. During this period, he also served as managing editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry from 1914 to 1925.

Brookhaven In 1948, approaching retirement age, Van Slyke took up a position as deputy director of biology and medicine of the newly-formed Brookhaven National Laboratory. He held this position briefly before moving back into research at Brookhaven, which he continued until his death in 1971.

Awards and honors

Honorary doctor of science degrees Yale University, 1925 University of Michigan, 1935 Northwestern University, 1940 University of Chicago, 1941 University of London, 1951 Rockefeller University, 1966

Honorary doctor of medicine degrees

University of Oslo, 1938 University of Amsterdam, 1962 University of Ulm, 1970

Medals and awards Charles Mickle Fellowship, University of Toronto, 1936 Phillip A. Conne Medal, Chemists' Club of New York, 1936 Willard Gibbs Award, Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society, 1939 Order of Brilliant Jade, Republic of China, 1939 Kober Medal, Association of American Physicians, 1942 Order of Brilliant Star, Republic of China, 1947 Fisher Award in Analytical Chemistry, American Chemical Society, 1953 John Phillips Memorial Award, American College of Physicians, 1954 First Van Slyke Award in Clinical Chemistry, American Association of Clinical Chemists, 1957 First Scientific Achievement Award, American Medical Association, 1962 Ames Award, American Association of Clinical Chemistry, 1964 National Medal of Science, USA, 1965 Elliott Cresson Medal, Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, 1965 Academy Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Biomedical Science, New York Academy of Medicine, 1967

Academic Society Memberships

United States National Academy of Sciences (1921) American Philosophical Society (1938) American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1940)

References