George Edward Briggs
FRS (25 June 1893 – 7 February 1985) was Professor of
Botany
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek w ...
at the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
.
He was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, the eldest son of Walker Thomas and Susan (née Townend) Briggs.
He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
in 1935.
He published several significant scientific papers on
enzyme
Enzymes () are proteins that act as biological catalysts by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as products ...
s. Part of his work on enzymes was done with
J. B. S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (; 5 November 18921 December 1964), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS", was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biolog ...
, and led to
the derivation of
Victor Henri
Victor Henri (6 June 1872 – 21 June 1940) was a French-Russian physical chemist and physiologist. He was born in Marseilles as a son of Russian parents. He is known mainly as an early pioneer in enzyme kinetics. He published more than 500 pape ...
's enzyme kinetics law and
Michaelis–Menten kinetics
In biochemistry, Michaelis–Menten kinetics is one of the best-known models of enzyme kinetics. It is named after German biochemist Leonor Michaelis and Canadian physician Maud Menten. The model takes the form of an equation describing the rat ...
via the
steady state
In systems theory, a system or a process is in a steady state if the variables (called state variables) which define the behavior of the system or the process are unchanging in time. In continuous time, this means that for those properties ''p' ...
approximation. This derivation remains commonly used today because it provides better insight into the system, though it retains the algebraic form of the Michaelis-Menten equations.
Notable publications of Briggs include ''Movement of Water in Plants''.
[Briggs, G. E. "Movement Of Water In Plants.." Science, vol 157, no. 3794, 1967, pp. 1297-1298. American Association For The Advancement Of Science (AAAS), doi:10.1126/science.157.3794.1297-a.]
References
External links
Portrait of George Edward Briggsat the
National Portrait Gallery in London, painted by
Walter Stoneman
Walter Ernest Stoneman (6 April 1876 – 14 May 1958) was an English portrait photographer who took many photographs for the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in London.
Career as a photographer
Stoneman was born in Plymouth, Devon, on 6 ...
1893 births
1985 deaths
People from Grimsby
Fellows of the Royal Society
Professors of Botany (Cambridge)
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