FROM BACTERIAL NUTRITION TO ENZYME STRUCTURE: A Personal Odyssey

As a former editor or member of the Editorial Board of the Annual Review of Biochemistry I helped to select authors of the prefatory chapters for more than 20 years. Now I am asked to write one myself. The first such chapter appeared in 1953 with the prefatorial statement: “This is the first of a series in which it is the hope of the Editorial Committee that our elders in biochemistry will give us through chapters of a historical and philosophical character the benefit of their long years of experience in biochemistry.” With one exception, the chapters have appeared regularly ever since. Their authors comprise a group I am proud to join even while harboring some doubts about really belonging. Their autobiographical accounts have added much to our understanding of how and why they became biochemists, and how biochemistry itself developed. I shall continue in this tradition.