Emanuel Margoliash (February 10, 1920 – April 10, 2008) was a biochemist who spent much of his career studying the protein

cytochrome c The cytochrome complex, or cyt ''c'', is a small hemeprotein found loosely associated with the inner membrane of the mitochondrion. It belongs to the cytochrome c family of proteins and plays a major role in cell apoptosis. Cytochrome c is hig ...

. He is best known for his work on

molecular evolution Molecular evolution is the process of change in the sequence composition of cellular molecules such as DNA, RNA, and proteins across generations. The field of molecular evolution uses principles of evolutionary biology and population genetics ...

; with Walter Fitch, he devised

Fitch-Margoliash method Computational phylogenetics is the application of computational algorithms, methods, and programs to phylogenetic

for computational phylogenetics, constructing evolutionary trees based on protein sequences. He was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Biography

Margoliash earned an M.D. from the American University of Beirut. He served as an Israeli Army

medical officer A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

during the

1948 Arab-Israeli War Events January * January 1 ** The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is inaugurated. ** The Constitution of New Jersey (later subject to amendment) goes into effect. ** The railways of Britain are nationalized, to form British ...

, and subsequently held research positions at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

- Hadassah Medical School, the Nobel Institute Department of Biochemistry, the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

College of Medicine, the McGill-Montreal General Hospital Research Institute,

Abbott Laboratories Abbott Laboratories is an American multinational medical devices and health care company with headquarters in Abbott Park, Illinois, United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate known dr ...

, Northwestern University, where he was chair of the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology during the 1980s. He left Abbott Laboratories to join the faculty at Northwestern University, and continued his research on cytochrome c, until Northwestern Universities policies forced him to retire. He quietly enjoyed his retirement ceremonies and immediately obtained a position (with all new labs) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His passion for cytochrome C research took him all over the world, and in 1970 he was offered the chance to dissect a

coelacanth The coelacanths ( ) are fish belonging to the order Actinistia that includes two extant species in the genus ''Latimeria'': the West Indian Ocean coelacanth (''Latimeria chalumnae''), primarily found near the Comoro Islands off the east coast ...

fish and isolate its cytochrome C for sequencing. This fish which lives at great ocean depths was washed up on the shores of the

Comoros The Comoros,, ' officially the Union of the Comoros,; ar, الاتحاد القمري ' is an independent country made up of three islands in southeastern Africa, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. It ...

during the war, and

de Gaulle Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government ...

deemed it a "French fish" and refused to allow its exportation. Margoliash went to France and with his colleagues carried out the cytochrome C isolation of the large fish, and returned with a small crystal in a small

vial A vial (also known as a phial or flacon) is a small glass or plastic vessel or bottle, often used to store medication as liquids, powders or capsules. They can also be used as scientific sample vessels; for instance, in autosampler devices i ...

which represented the entire amount of cytochrome C in the unusual animal.

Notes

References

Emeritus Faculty Emanuel Margoliash Dies at Age 88
''NewsCenter'', Northwestern University, April 29, 2008.

External Links

Indrani Mukharji, "Emanuel Margoliash", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2020)
1920 births American University of Beirut alumni Hebrew University of Jerusalem faculty University of Utah faculty University of Illinois Chicago faculty 2008 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 20th-century American biochemists {{US-biochemist-stub