Roger Sidney Goody (born 17 April 1944, in

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

) is an English

biochemist Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. They study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. Biochemists study DNA, proteins and Cell (biology), cell parts. The word "biochemist" is a portmanteau of ...

who served as director at the

Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology (german: Max-Planck-Institut für molekulare Physiologie) is located in Dortmund, next to the Dortmund University of Technology. It is one of 80 institutes in the Max Planck Society (Max Planck Ges ...

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

from 1993 until 2013. Since 2013 he is Emeritus Director of the institute.

Education

Goody studied Chemistry at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

, England, where he was awarded a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in 1968 for studies on the chemistry of

cytosine Cytosine () ( symbol C or Cyt) is one of the four nucleobases found in DNA and RNA, along with adenine, guanine, and thymine (uracil in RNA). It is a pyrimidine derivative, with a heterocyclic aromatic ring and two substituents attached (an am ...

Career and research

After his PhD, Goody was appointed a postdoctoral researcher at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, NY, USA in the field of natural products research. In 1970 he became a scientific fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine, Göttingen in the field of

nucleotide Nucleotides are organic molecules consisting of a nucleoside and a phosphate. They serve as monomeric units of the nucleic acid polymers – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA), both of which are essential biomolecules wi ...

research. From 1972 till 1993 he was a group leader at the

Max Planck Institute for Medical Research The Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, is a facility of the Max Planck Society for basic medical research. Since its foundation, six Nobel Prize laureates worked at the Institute: Otto Fritz Meyerhof (Physiology), R ...

, Heidelberg in the field of

enzymology 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. A ...

and

research, with a focus on

actin Actin is a family of globular multi-functional proteins that form microfilaments in the cytoskeleton, and the thin filaments in muscle fibrils. It is found in essentially all eukaryotic cells, where it may be present at a concentration of over ...

myosin Myosins () are a superfamily of motor proteins best known for their roles in muscle contraction and in a wide range of other motility processes in eukaryotes. They are ATP-dependent and responsible for actin-based motility. The first myosin ...

, adenylate kinase, EF-Tu, HRAS-p21,

reverse transcriptase A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to generate complementary DNA (cDNA) from an RNA template, a process termed reverse transcription. Reverse transcriptases are used by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B to replicate their genomes, ...

, nucleotides and

nucleic acid Nucleic acids are biopolymers, macromolecules, essential to all known forms of life. They are composed of nucleotides, which are the monomers made of three components: a 5-carbon sugar, a phosphate group and a nitrogenous base. The two main cl ...

sequencing. An overriding theme of his research interests has been the transient states of enzymes, along the enzyme reaction pathway, against the background of selective and specific ligand-protein interactions and structure-function relationships. In 1983 he habilitated at the faculty for biochemistry and biophysics of the University of Heidelberg and was announced adjunct professor in 1990. In 1993 he accepted the position of Director at the

, Dortmund and became a scientific fellow of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

. Since 2004 he has also held a full professorship in biochemistry (supramolecular systems) at the

Ruhr University Bochum The Ruhr University Bochum (, ) is a public research university located in the southern hills of the central Ruhr area, Bochum, Germany. It was founded in 1962 as the first new public university in Germany after World War II. Instruction began in ...

, with a dual emphasis on higher education and fundamental research. Goody has combined chemistry, structural biology and kinetics to make major contributions in several fields of biology. He pioneered the use of nucleotide analogs, synthesized at the beginning of his career, in muscle research and later for Ras-family GTPases, leading to the first ever structure determination of an unstable protein-substrate complex (Ras:GTP). Innovative use of semi-synthetic proteins led to an understanding of transport mechanisms of Rab GTPases and to resolution of a longstanding controversy concerning targeting of these proteins to membranes. His group discovered and characterized hitherto unrecognized covalent modifications of Rab proteins by bacteria.

Honours, awards and memberships

From 2013 to 2015, Goody was President of the German Society for Biochemistry and molecular Biology (GBM). In 2018 he was elected Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. * President of the German Society of Biochemistry and molecular Biology * German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (since 2003) * Max Bergman Society * Awarded membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) * Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the

Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (English Springer Spaniel), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...

(MDC) Berlin Buch * Chairman of the Study Section for Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German National Research Organization) - 2000-2009 *1991: Max Planck Prize *2003:

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded ...

*2008: Max Bergmann Medal *2012: Astbury Lecture - Astbury Society, Leeds *2012: Xu Guangqi Lecture, CAS-Max-Planck Partner Institute, Shanghai China *2015:

Feldberg Prize The Feldberg Foundation promotes scientific exchange between German and British scientists in the field of experimental medical research. The foundation is registered in Hamburg, Germany with the secretariat based in the UK. The pharmacologist Wil ...

*2018: Elected

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 science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS)

Personal life

Goody is married to the biologist Dr. Waltraud Hofmann-Goody and has two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goody, Roger Sidney 1944 births Living people British biochemists 20th-century British chemists 21st-century British chemists Max Planck Society people Fellows of the Royal Society Members of the European Molecular Biology Organization Alumni of the University of Birmingham