William Joseph Whelan FRS (14 November 1924 – 5 June 2021) was a British-born American biochemist. He was professor and chair of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine of the University of Miami. He founded the annual Miami Winter Symposium in 1967 and was chief editor of the journal ''

IUBMB Life ''IUBMB Life'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of developmental biology that was established in 1999. It is one of four official journals of the IUBMB. The journal is published monthly by John Wiley & Sons. According to the ''Journal Ci ...

''.

Biography

Whelan was born in

Salford, Greater Manchester Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county aft ...

in 1924. He studied organic chemistry at the University of Birmingham starting in 1942, earning a B.Sc. in 1944 and Ph.D. in 1948. He taught at University College of North Wales and the University of London, and became Head of the Department of Biochemistry of the

Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine UCL Medical School is the medical school of University College London (UCL) and is located in London, United Kingdom. The School provides a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate medical education programmes and also has a medical educati ...

, University of London in 1964. In 1967, he moved to the United States and served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the University of Miami Medical School. He became Professor and Chairman Emeritus in 1991. Whelan was known for his pioneering research on the structure of starch and

glycogen Glycogen is a multibranched polysaccharide of glucose that serves as a form of energy storage in animals, fungi, and bacteria. The polysaccharide structure represents the main storage form of glucose in the body. Glycogen functions as one o ...

. He discovered the D enzyme in plants and proved that glycogen contained the protein glycogenin. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1992. He died on 5 June 2021 at the age of 96.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whelan, William Joseph 1924 births 2021 deaths University of Miami faculty British biochemists American biochemists Fellows of the Royal Society Founding members of the World Cultural Council Academic journal editors Alumni of the University of Birmingham Academics of Bangor University Academics of the University of London British emigrants to the United States People from Salford Presidents of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology