Harold Edwin Umbarger (17 July 1921, Shelby, Ohio – 15 November 1999, Carmel, Indiana) was an American bacteriologist and biochemist.

Biography

Umbarger grew up in Mansfield, Ohio and graduated from

Mansfield Senior High School Mansfield Senior High School is located in Mansfield, Ohio, United States. The school serves grades 9-12 and is part of the Mansfield City School District. The school enrolls 1,389 students as of the 2006–2007 academic year. Their nickname is t ...

in 1939. At

Ohio University Ohio University is a Public university, public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university chartered by an Act of Congress and the first to be chartered in Ohio, the university was chartered in 1787 by the Congress of the Confeder ...

he graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1943 and a master's degree in zoology in 1944. For two years from 1944 to 1946 he served in the U.S. Navy as a hospital corpsman. In 1945 he served aboard the USS ''Rescue''. In 1950 he received a Ph.D. in bacteriology from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. His doctoral thesis, supervised by

J. Howard Mueller ''J. The Jewish News of Northern California'', formerly known as ''Jweekly'', is a weekly print newspaper in Northern California, with its online edition updated daily. It is owned and operated by San Francisco Jewish Community Publications In ...

, is entitled ''Studies on the Interactions Involved in the Biosynthetic Mechanisms of Isoleucine and Valine in Escherichia Coli''. From 1950 to 1959 Umbarger did research at Harvard. From 1957 to 1960 he was an assistant professor of bacteriology and Immunology at Harvard Medical School, but he was untenured. For the academic year 1959–1960, on leave of absence from Harvard, he worked at several laboratories in England. From 1960 to 1964 he held the appointment of Staff Investigator at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. 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 ...

he was appointed in 1964 a full professor and in 1970 Wright Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences. He held that professorship until his retirement. Umbarger was a leading expert on

biosynthesis Biosynthesis is a multi-step, enzyme-catalyzed process where substrates are converted into more complex products in living organisms. In biosynthesis, simple compounds are modified, converted into other compounds, or joined to form macromolecules. ...

amino acids Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha am ...

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

. He is perhaps best known as the co-discoverer, with Edward A. Adelberg in 1953, of

feedback inhibition An enzyme inhibitor is a molecule that binds to an enzyme and blocks its activity. Enzymes are proteins that speed up chemical reactions necessary for life, in which substrate molecules are converted into products. An enzyme facilitates a sp ...

in the metabolism of valine and isoleucine. Feedback inhibition in biochemistry had been reported in an almost unknown paper a decade earlier by

Zacharias Dische Zacharias Dische (18 February 1895 – 17 January 1988) was an American biochemist of Ukrainian-Jewish origin. He worked as a biochemical researcher in Vienna before being forced by the Anschluß to become a refugee, first in France and then in th ...

. While he was still a student, Umbarger married Merle Gladys Abele (1922–1993). They had three daughters. In 1995 he married his second wife.

Awards and honors

* 1963 —

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

. * 1971 — Elected a Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

. * 1975 — Rosenstiel Award, jointly with

Arthur B. Pardee Arthur Beck Pardee (July 13, 1921 – February 24, 2019) was an American biochemist. One biographical portrait begins "Among the titans of science, Arthur Pardee is especially intriguing." There is hardly a field of molecular biology that is not ...

(for independent research). * 1976 — Elected a Member of the

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 ...

. * 1999 — Establishment of H. Edwin Umbarger Distinguished Professorship of Genetics at Purdue University. The first holder of the professorship was

Jeffrey Bennetzen Jeffrey Lynn Bennetzen is an American geneticist on the faculty of the University of Georgia (UGA). Bennetzen is known for his work describing codon usage bias in yeast, being the first to clone and sequence an active transposon in maize,Hitt, E ...

, succeeded (in 2012) by Stanton B. Galvin.

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Umbarger, Harold Edwin 20th-century American biochemists American bacteriologists Ohio University alumni Harvard University alumni Purdue University faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 1921 births 1999 deaths United States Navy personnel of World War II