Judith P. Klinman (born April 17, 1941 in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

) is an American chemist, biochemist, and molecular biologist known for her work on

enzyme catalysis Enzyme catalysis is the increase in the rate of a process by a biological molecule, an "enzyme". Most enzymes are proteins, and most such processes are chemical reactions. Within the enzyme, generally catalysis occurs at a localized site, calle ...

. She became the first female professor in the physical sciences at the University of California, Berkeley in 1978, where she is now Professor of the Graduate School and Chancellor's Professor. In 2012, she was awarded the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

. She is 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 ...

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 ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

Early life

Klinman was born April 17, 1941 in

. When Klinman was two years old, her biological father left the family. Klinman's mother sold her house and possessions and moved with Klinman to

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and artificial island, man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the ...

, for a time, before returning to Philadelphia to find work. Klinman's mother then remarried, and so she was raised by her mother and stepfather. Neither her mother nor stepfather graduated from college, but her stepfather attended

Drexel University Drexel University is a private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Art, S ...

for two years but dropped out due to the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, and later found work selling furniture. Klinman was initially interested in ballet, but her interest in chemistry was piqued by her high school chemistry teacher. She received a partial scholarship from her high school, Overbrook High School, to attend college, graduating second in her class. Klinman decided to enroll in the University of Pennsylvania's College for Women, despite pressure from her family to become a lab technician and get married.

Education and training

Beginning in 1958, Klinman studied chemistry at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

(UPenn). While in college, Klinman was a laboratory technician at the Eldridge R. Johnson Foundation for Research in Medical Physics at UPenn. She graduated with her A.B. in Chemistry in 1962. Klinman applied to medical and graduate school, and received acceptances to both. In 1962, Klinman enrolled in the Chemistry graduate program at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

(NYU). Klinman credits her time at NYU for "opening ereyes to the excitement and beauty of organic reaction mechanisms." After a year in New York City, she moved back to Philadelphia, and enrolled at UPenn for graduate studies. Working in the laboratory of physical organic chemist Prof. Edward R. Thornton, Klinman studied the hydrolysis kinetics of benzyl-substituted imidiazoles. She graduated with her Ph.D. in 1966. In 1966, Klinman travelled to the

Weizmann Institute The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli univ ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

to conduct postdoctoral research with Prof. David Samuel. She worked in the Isotopes Department, which had a large supply of heavy water that could be used for kinetic studies. Klinman's work with Samuel involved understanding the role of divalent metal ions in the hydrolysis of high-energy acyl phosphates. While in Israel, Klinman survived the Six-Day War of 1967. She and her then husband, Norman R. Klinman, left Israel in 1967, as her husband was conducting postdoctoral studies at the

National Institute for Medical Research The National Institute for Medical Research (commonly abbreviated to NIMR), was a medical research institute based in Mill Hill, on the outskirts of north London, England. It was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC); In 2016, the NIMR b ...

Mill Hill, London Mill Hill is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is situated around northwest of Charing Cross. Mill Hill was in the historic county of Middlesex until 1965, when it became part of Greater London. Its population counted 18,45 ...

. Klinman arranged a nonpaying apprenticeship at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

(UCL) in the laboratory of Charles A. Vernon, and also took courses in biochemistry at UCL. Klinman and her husband returned to the United States in 1968, and Klinman took up a position as a postdoctoral associate at the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR), a part of the Fox Chase Cancer Research Institute. There, she joined the laboratory of

Irwin Rose Irwin Allan Rose (July 16, 1926 – June 2, 2015) was an American biologist. Along with Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. Education ...

, where she investigated the mechanism of aconitate isomerase, an enzyme that catalyzes the cis-trans isomerism of

aconitate Aconitic acid is an organic acid. The two isomers are ''cis''-aconitic acid and ''trans''-aconitic acid. The conjugate base of ''cis''-aconitic acid, ''cis''-aconitate is an intermediate in the isomerization of citrate to isocitrate in the citric ...

. Klinman also studied the stereochemical products of

ATP citrate lyase ATP citrate synthase (also ATP citrate lyase (ACLY)) is an enzyme that in animals represents an important step in fatty acid biosynthesis. By converting citrate to acetyl-CoA, the enzyme links carbohydrate metabolism, which yields citrate as an ...

and

citrate synthase The enzyme citrate synthase E.C. 2.3.3.1 (previously 4.1.3.7)] exists in nearly all living cells and stands as a pace-making enzyme in the first step of the citric acid cycle (or Krebs cycle). Citrate synthase is localized within eukaryotic cell ...

Independent career

In 1972, Klinman was promoted to an independent staff scientist, equivalent to an Assistant Professorship, at the Institute for Cancer Research. In 1974, she joined the University of Pennsylvania as an Assistant Professor of

Biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

. In 1978, she moved to

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

as an Associate Professor in Chemistry, the first female faculty member in the physical sciences at UC Berkeley. She is currently the Professor of the Graduate School at the Departments of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology and the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences at the University of California, Berkeley. She also served the Chancellor's Professor for University of California Berkeley. She currently serves as the Professor of the Graduate School. Her group has discovered that room temperature hydrogen tunneling occurs among various enzymatic reactions, such as enzymatic C-H cleavage, and clarified the dynamics of tunneling process through data analysis. They have also discovered the quino-enzymes, a new class of

redox Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate (chemistry), substrate change. Oxidation is the loss of Electron, electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction ...

cofactors Cofactor may also refer to: * Cofactor (biochemistry), a substance that needs to be present in addition to an enzyme for a certain reaction to be catalysed * A domain parameter in elliptic curve cryptography, defined as the ratio between the order ...

in eukaryotic enzymes.

Honors and awards

*1988

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 ...

*1992 and 2003-4 Miller Professorship, University of California, Berkeley. *1993 Elected to the

*1994 Elected to the

*1994 Repligen Award for Chemistry of Biological Processes. *1995 Alexander M. Cruickshank Lecturer *1996 Fellow of the Japanese Ministry of Science *2000 Honorary Doctorate (F.D.(h.c.)) from the

University of Uppsala Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

, Sweden. *2001 Elected to the

*2003 David S. Sigman Lectureship Award from

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. *2005

Remsen Award Ira Remsen (February 10, 1846 – March 4, 1927) was an American chemist who discovered the artificial sweetener saccharin along with Constantin Fahlberg. He was the second president of Johns Hopkins University. Early life Ira Remsen was born ...

, Maryland Section of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...

*2006 Honorary Doctorate (Sc.D.(h.c.)) from the

*2007 Elected to the

*2007 Merck Award from the

American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906, at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel (Johns Hopkins University). The roots of the society were in the American Phy ...

*2009 Elected to the

Royal Society of Chemistry The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a learned society (professional association) in the United Kingdom with the goal of "advancing the chemistry, chemical sciences". It was formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the Chemical Society, the Ro ...

*2011 Elected to the American Chemical Society *2012 A. I. Scott Medal for Excellence in Biological Chemistry Research,

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

. *2014

. *2015

Mildred Cohn Award in Biological Chemistry The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906, at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel (Johns Hopkins University). The roots of the society were in the American Phy ...

from the

American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906, at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel (Johns Hopkins University). The roots of the society were in the American Phy ...

. *2017

Willard Gibbs Award The Willard Gibbs Award, presented by thChicago Sectionof the American Chemical Society, was established in 1910 by William A. Converse (1862–1940), a former Chairman and Secretary of the Chicago Section of the society and named for Professor Jo ...

from the Chicago Section of the

*2018 Penn Chemistry Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Pennsylvania

Personal life

Judith Klinman was married to Norman R. Klinman, who later became a Professor of Immunology and Microbial Science at

The Scripps Research Institute Scripps Research, previously known as The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), is a nonprofit American medical research facility that focuses on research and education in the biomedical sciences. Headquartered in San Diego, California, the institu ...

. The two met at the

, and were married while Klinman was completing her Ph.D. They had two children together, Andrew and Douglas. Andrew was born while Klinman was in graduate school (born 1964-1966), and Douglas when she was a postdoctoral scholar at the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli unive ...

in Israel (born in 1967). She and Norman divorced in 1978, at the time of her laboratory's move to UC Berkeley. Judith Klinman later married Mordechai Mitnick, a grassroots organizer who later established a

psychotherapy Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of psychological methods, particularly when based on regular personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase happiness, and overcome pro ...

practice in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

. They raised four children together: Alexandra, Joshua, Andrew, and Douglas, and have eight grandchildren. Klinman has a stepsister, who as of 2002 worked for the

Small Business Administration The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) is an independent agency of the United States government that provides support to entrepreneurs and small businesses. The mission of the Small Business Administration is "to maintain and stren ...

Videos

2012 - National Medals of Science (National Science & Technology Medals Foundation)

2014 - Thriving in Science Lecture: "Not Going It Alone"

2018 - NSF/JHU Quantum Biology and Quantum Processes in Biology Workshop - "Tunneling in Biology"

2020 - Interviewing Eminent Scientists - Prof. Judith Klinman

2022 - G.N. Lewis Lecture - "At the Interface of Quantum and Classical Behavior in Enzyme Catalysis"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Klinman Judith P. 1941 births University of Pennsylvania alumni 21st-century American chemists National Medal of Science laureates University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Living people Women chemists Women biologists Women biochemists UC Berkeley College of Chemistry faculty