Dean Burk
| M. Dean Burk, PhD | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | March 21, 1904 |
| Died | October 6, 1988 (aged 84) |
| Alma mater |
University of California, Berkeley University of California, Davis |
University of California, Berkeley
Dean Burk (March 21, 1904 – October 6, 1988) was an American biochemist: a co-discoverer of biotin, medical researcher, and a cancer researcher at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the National Cancer Institute. In 1934, he developed the Lineweaver–Burk plot together with Hans Lineweaver.
Dean was the second of four sons born to Frederic Burk, the founder of the San Francisco Normal School, a preparatory school for teachers which eventually became San Francisco State University. He entered the University of California at Davis at the age of 15. A year later, he transferred to the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his B.S. in Entomology in 1923. Four years later he earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry.
Burk joined the Department of Agriculture in 1929 working in the Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory. In 1939, he joined the Cancer Institute as a senior chemist. He was head of the cytochemistry laboratory when he retired in 1974. He also taught biochemistry at the Cornell University medical school from 1939 to 1941. He was a research master at George Washington University. Burk was a close friend and co-author with Otto Heinrich Warburg. He was a co-developer of the prototype of the Magnetic Resonance Scanner and a co-discoverer of biotin. Burk published more than 250 scientific articles in his lifetime. He later became head of the National Cancer Institute's Cytochemistry Sector in 1938, although he is often mistaken as leading the entire facility.
After retiring from the NCI in 1974, Dean Burk remained active. He devoted himself to his opposition to water fluoridation. According to Burk "fluoridation is a form of public mass murder." Dean Burk argued on Dutch television against a water fluoridation proposal which was before the Dutch Parliament in the Netherlands. He also was an avid supporter of laetrile; a cancer treatment now regarded by the medical establishment as ineffective and potentially dangerous.
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