The Biochemistry of Life’s Energy

Abstract

On December 10, 1997, the 101st anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, in Stockholm’s Concert Hall Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav awarded one half of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (3.75 million kronor, about $500,000) to Professor Emeritus Paul Delos Boyer, age 79, of the University of California, Los Angeles and Dr. John Ernest Walker, age 56, of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England “for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)” and one half (3.75 million kronor, about $500,000) to Professor Emeritus Jens Christian Skou, age 79, of Århus University, Århus, Denmark “for the first discovery of an ion-transporting enzyme, Na⁺, K⁺-ATPase.”