John E. Walker
| Sir John Walker | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Ernest Walker 7 January 1941 Halifax, West Yorkshire, England |
| Institutions |
University of Oxford Laboratory of Molecular Biology University of Cambridge |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford (BA, DPhil) |
| Thesis | Studies on naturally occurring peptides (1970) |
| Doctoral advisor | Edward Abraham |
| Influences | Fred Sanger |
| Notable awards |
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| Spouse | Christina Westcott (m. 1963) |
| Children | Two |
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Website www |
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Sir John Ernest Walker (born 7 January 1941) is an English chemist who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997. As of 2015[update] Walker is Emeritus Director and Professor at the MRC in Cambridge, and a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
Walker was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, the son of Thomas Ernest Walker, a stonemason, and Elsie Lawton, an amateur musician. He was brought up with his two younger sisters (Judith and Gen) in a rural environment and went to Rastrick Grammar School. At school, he was a keen sportsman and specialized in physical sciences and mathematics the last three years. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from St Catherine's College, Oxford.
Walker began his study of peptide antibiotics with Edward Abraham at Oxford in 1965 and received his DPhil in 1969. During this period, he became interested in the spectacular developments in molecular biology. From 1969 to 1971, he worked at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and from 1971–1974 in France. He met Fred Sanger in 1974 at a workshop at the University of Cambridge. This resulted in an invitation to work at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the Medical Research Council, which became a long-term appointment. Among the other staff was Francis Crick, who was well known for his discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. At first, he analyzed the sequences of proteins and then uncovered details of the modified genetic code in . In 1978, he decided to apply protein chemical methods to membrane proteins. In this way, Walker characterized the subunit composition of proteins in the mitochondrial membrane and the DNA sequence of the mitochondrial genome.
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