| John H. Northrop  AKA John Howard Northrop
Born: 5-Jul-1891
Birthplace: Yonkers, NY
Died: 27-May-1987
Location of death: Wickenberg, AZ
Cause of death: Suicide
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Chemist Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Bacteriophages Military service: US Army (WWI, 1917-18, Captain, Chemical Warfare Service) John H. Northrop shared the 1946 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Wendell M. Stanley and James B. Sumner, for his work establishing the chemical nature of enzymes and showing that bacteriophages (viruses that infect specific bacteria) contain nucleic acid. He isolated the crystalline protein pepsin in 1930, showed that bacteriophages are viruses in 1936, and isolated the first bacteriophage in 1938. He also isolated and crystalized chymotrypsin, deoxyribonuclease, ribonuclease, and trypsin, and ascertained the phase rule solubility method used in evaluating protein purity.
Friends and colleagues called him "Big Jack". His parents were both scientists, but his father was killed in a laboratory explosion and fire less than two weeks before Northrop's birth. He was rendered almost entirely deaf by military nerve gas experiments he conducted during World War II, and for this reason he rarely attended scientific meetings. His son-in-law, Frederick C. Robbins, won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1954. In failing health and ninety-five years of age, Northrop took his own life in 1987. His autobiography, which remains unpublished, is titled Just for the Fun of It. Father: John Isaiah Northrop, Jr. (biologist at Columbia University, b. circa 1862, d. 27-Jun-1891)
Mother: Alice Belle Rich Northrop (botanist at Hunter College, b. 1864, d. 1922)
Wife: Louise Walker (m. 26-Jun-1917, d. 21-Apr-1975, one son, one daughter)
Son: John Northrop (oceanographer)
Daughter: Alice Havemeyer Northrop Robbins (married Nobel laureate Frederick C. Robbins)
High School: Yonkers High School, Yonkers, NY (1909)
University: BS, Columbia University (1912)
University: MA, Columbia University (1913)
University: PhD Chemistry, Columbia University (1915)
Scholar: Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, NYC (1916-61)
Professor: Bacteriology & Biophysics, University of California at Berkeley (1947-61)
Stevens Prize 1931
National Academy of Sciences 1934
Chandler Medal 1936
Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal 1939
Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1946 (with Wendell M. Stanley and James B. Sumner)
Alexander Hamilton Medal 1961
British Chemical Society Foreign Member
Journal of General Physiology Editorial Board, 1924-87
English Ancestry Paternal
Risk Factors: Deafness
Author of books:
Crystalline Enzymes (1939, chemistry textbook)
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