Chester Hamlin Werkman (June 17, 1893,

Fort Wayne Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

– September 10, 1962,

Ames, Iowa Ames () is a city in Story County, Iowa, United States, located approximately north of Des Moines in central Iowa. It is best known as the home of Iowa State University (ISU), with leading agriculture, design, engineering, and veterinary medici ...

) was an American microbiologist. He is known as one of the pioneers of understanding and reconstructing the enzymatic processes involved in bacterial metabolic processes.

Biography

After completing secondary school in Fort Wayne, he briefly worked for a railroad company. He then matriculated at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

, where he graduated in 1919 with a B.S. in chemistry. In 1919, for a few months, he did routine research for the

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respon ...

in the Department of Agriculture. In September 1919 he became a chemistry instructor at the

University of Idaho The University of Idaho (U of I, or UIdaho) is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho. It is the state's land-grant and primary research university,, and the lead university in the Idaho Space Grant Consortium. The University ...

. In September 1920 he became a graduate student in the bacteriology department of

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

. There in 1923 he received his doctorate with dissertation ''Immunologic Significance of Vitamins'' under the supervision of Robert Earle Buchanan. For the academic year 1924–1925 Werkman was an assistant professor in microbiology at the

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medica ...

. At Iowa State University, he was from 1925 to 1927 an assistant professor, from 1927 to 1933 an associate professor, and from 1933 to retirement a full professor. From 1945 until retirement, he was the head of the bacteriology department, but a number of his colleagues considered his control of the department "petty and autocratic". (See page 337.) Influenced by Albert Jan Kluyver, Werkman directed Iowa State's microbiological department toward biochemical methods, which before Werkman's influence was somewhat more oriented toward botany and zoology. In his laboratory he worked with several noteworthy researchers over the years, including Lester O. Krampitz and Merton F. Utter (both of whom were his doctoral students). Working with Harland G. Wood in 1936 led to an outstanding result, when it was discovered that some bacteria (of the genus ''

Propionibacterium ''Propionibacterium'' is a gram-positive, anaerobic, rod-shaped genus of bacteria named for their unique metabolism: They are able to synthesize propionic acid by using unusual transcarboxylase enzymes. Its members are primarily facultative par ...

'') can utilize CO₂ as

chemotroph A Chemotroph is an organism that obtains energy by the oxidation of electron donors in their environments. These molecules can be organic ( chemoorganotrophs) or inorganic (chemolithotrophs). The chemotroph designation is in contrast to phototro ...

s. Wood and Werkman's work followed pioneering research by

Cornelis Bernardus van Niel Cornelis Bernardus van Niel (also known as Kees van Niel) (November 4, 1897 – March 10, 1985) was a Dutch-American microbiologist. He introduced the study of general microbiology to the United States and made key discoveries explaining t ...

in Kluyver's laboratory. In 1944 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by

. In 1946 he was elected a member of the

United States National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. He married Cecile Baker in 1913. Their son Robert Theodore Werkman (1915–2012) became a chemical engineer and a U.S. Army captain, who participated in the

Battle of the Bulge The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Werkman, Chester Hamlin 1893 births 1962 deaths American microbiologists Purdue University alumni Iowa State University alumni Iowa State University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences