Gilbert Ashwell (July 16, 1916 – June 27, 2014) was an American
biochemist at the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
. He was elected as a member of the
National Academy of Sciences for his work with Anatol Morell in isolating the first
cell receptor
In biochemistry and pharmacology, receptors are chemical structures, composed of protein, that receive and transduce signals that may be integrated into biological systems. These signals are typically chemical messengers which bind to a recept ...
.
Biography
Ashwell was born in
Jersey City, New Jersey in 1916. After high school, he went to college to further his education. He attended the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
, where he earned his B.A.in 1938 and M.S. in 1941. He then went to
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in New York, which was closer to his hometown, to spend two years doing research. In 1950, Ashwell joined the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism, and Digestive Diseases.
[Kresge, Nicole, Robert D. Simoni, and Robert L. Hill. “Hepatic Carbohydrate Binding Proteins and Glycoprotein Catabolism: the Work of Gilbert G. Ashwell.” ''The Journal of Biological Chemistry''. n.d. Web. 11 March 2010.] This Institute had grown and later split into two institutes, which are the
and the
. Ashwell worked at the latter as an emeritus scientist after his retirement.
[
]
Ashwell’s research
Ashwell’s goal as a researcher was to devise a labeling serum glycoproteins
Glycoproteins are proteins which contain oligosaccharide chains covalently attached to amino acid side-chains. The carbohydrate is attached to the protein in a cotranslational or posttranslational modification. This process is known as glycosy ...
in order to study the role of ceruloplasmin
Ceruloplasmin (or caeruloplasmin) is a ferroxidase enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''CP'' gene.
Ceruloplasmin is the major copper-carrying protein in the blood, and in addition plays a role in iron metabolism. It was first described in 1 ...
in Wilson disease.[ With another researcher named Anatol G. Morell, he worked to propose that membrane ]lectins
Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins that are highly specific for sugar groups that are part of other molecules, so cause agglutination of particular cells or precipitation of glycoconjugates and polysaccharides. Lectins have a role in rec ...
remove senescent circulating glycoproteins, and discovered one of the earliest known carbohydrate receptors.[ They were able to devise a labeling procedure which allowed them to remove enzymes of the glycoproteins' sialic acid residue. By completing this process, they were able to incorporate other substances into the protein. In 1974, Ashwell and Morell happened to discover that a certain receptor in a human’s ]liver
The liver is a major organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for digestion and growth. In humans, it ...
is able to recognize a specific glycoprotein called asialoglycoprotein
If terminal sialic acid residues are removed from glycoproteins, the resulting proteins are known as asialoglycoproteins.
The exposure of the subterminal galactose residues results in rapid clearance of the glycoproteins from the circulation th ...
.[“Gilbert Ashwell: Sweet on Science.” ''Nature Medicine''. 2008. Web. 11 March 2010.] Ashwell explained that he was not specifically looking for the asialoglycoprotein when he found it.[
Ashwell died on June 27, 2014, from pneumonia in a Washington, D.C., area hospital. He was 97.][Barnes, Bart (23 July),]
Gilbert Ashwell, NIH researcher, dies at 97
, ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' (Washington D.C.) captured at 6:07 July 23, 2014.
See also
*Mucin
Mucins () are a family of high molecular weight, heavily glycosylated proteins (glycoconjugates) produced by epithelial tissues in most animals. Mucins' key characteristic is their ability to form gels; therefore they are a key component in most ...
Sources
External links
Paper dealing with his major discoveryJohn A. Hanover and William B. Jakoby, "G. Gilbert Ashwell", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2015)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashwell, Gilbert
1916 births
2014 deaths
American biochemists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences