Boyer, Paul Delos, 1918–2018, American biochemist, b. Provo, Utah, Ph.D. Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison, 1943. Boyer taught at the Univ. of Minnesota, first in Saint Paul (1946–56) and then in Minneapolis (1956–63), and at the Univ. of California, Los Angeles (1963–89, emeritus from 1990). He conducted research into enzymes and spent many years studying adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which functions as an energy carrier in all living organisms and is important in all reactions that require energy, including building cell components, contracting muscles, and transmitting nerve messages. His explanation of how the catalytic enzyme ATP synthase facilitated the chemical process that produces ATP led to his receiving the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with John Walker and Jens Skou.
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