William F. Harrington (1920 – 1992) was an American biochemist known for his work on the structure and function of

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 ...

s and

collagen Collagen () is the main structural protein in the extracellular matrix found in the body's various connective tissues. As the main component of connective tissue, it is the most abundant protein in mammals, making up from 25% to 35% of the whole ...

Early life and education

William Fields Harrington was born in Seattle on September 25, 1920. As a young man, Harrington worked at a Seattle aircraft manufacturing plant, then served in the US Marine Corps during World War II. After the war, Harrington enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley where he earned his BS degree, followed by 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 the laboratory of

Howard Schachman Howard Kapnek Schachman (December 5, 1918 – August 5, 2016) was a graduate school professor in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Early life Schachman was born in Philadelphia in 1918. In high s ...

, where he studied the structure of tobacco mosaic virus. While at Berkeley, he met Austrian-born musician Ingeborg Leuschner; the couple married in 1948. After his PhD, Harrington moved on to successive postdoctoral researcher positions: first a year at Cambridge University, then in the laboratory of Kai Linderstrom-Lang at the Carlsberg Laboratory.

Academic career

In 1955, Harrington joined the faculty of Iowa State College as an assistant professor of biophysical chemistry. After just a year, Harrington left Iowa to join Christian Anfinsen's laboratory at the National Institutes of Health. There he began his work on fibrous proteins: first collagen, then myosins. In 1960, he moved to Johns Hopkins University as professor at the Department of Biology and the University's McCollum-Pratt Institute. He served as that department's chairman from 1973 to 1983. Harrington was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 1976. Harrington was known for his work on

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. His work on myosins helped elucidate how chemical energy in the body is converted the mechanical process of muscle contraction. Over his career, Harrington authored or co-authored over 125 scientific journal articles.

Personal life

Harrington and his wife had a daughter and four sons. Harrington died of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

at his home on October 31, 1992.

References

{{Reflist Johns Hopkins University faculty 1920 births 1992 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences