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 affected by his work, which has advanced our understanding through theoretical predictions followed by insightful experiments. He is perhaps most famous for his part in the 'PaJaMo experiment' of the late 1950s, which greatly helped in the discovery of messenger RNA. He is also well known as the discoverer of the

restriction point The restriction point (R), also known as the Start or G1/S checkpoint, is a cell cycle checkpoint in the G1 phase, G1 phase of the animal cell cycle at which the cell becomes "committed" to the cell cycle, and after which extracellular cell signa ...

, in which a cell commits itself to certain

cell cycle The cell cycle, or cell-division cycle, is the series of events that take place in a cell that cause it to divide into two daughter cells. These events include the duplication of its DNA (DNA replication) and some of its organelles, and sub ...

events during the G1 cycle. He did a great deal of work on

tumor A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

growth and regulation, with a particular focus on the role of

estrogen Estrogen or oestrogen is a category of sex hormone responsible for the development and regulation of the female reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics. There are three major endogenous estrogens that have estrogenic hormonal ac ...

hormone A hormone (from the Greek participle , "setting in motion") is a class of signaling molecules in multicellular organisms that are sent to distant organs by complex biological processes to regulate physiology and behavior. Hormones are require ...

-responsive tumors. He is also well known for the development of various biochemical research techniques, most notably the differential display methodology, which is used in examining the activation of genes in cells. More recently he championed the acceptance and adoption of the conceptual review as a valuable approach to unearthing new knowledge from the enormous stores of information in the scientific literature. He died in February 2019 at the age of 97.

Career

Pardee received his Bachelor of Science degree from the

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 ...

in 1942 while his Master's (1943) and PhD (1947) degrees were earned at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

under the mentorship of Linus Pauling, who he considered to be the greatest chemist of the 20th century. Pardee did postdoctoral work at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

before returning to Berkeley as an instructor in biochemistry in 1949. In the 1950s, he was on a sabbatical with Francois Jacob and

Jacques Monod Jacques Lucien Monod (February 9, 1910 – May 31, 1976) was a French biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with François Jacob and André Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of e ...

in Paris. In 1961 Pardee became Professor in Biochemical Sciences at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

while in 1975 he moved to Boston to become Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the

Dana–Farber Cancer Institute Dana–Farber Cancer Institute is a comprehensive cancer treatment and research institution in Boston, Massachusetts. Dana–Farber is the founding member of Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Harvard's Comprehensive Cancer Center designated by ...

and

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

as well as Chief for the Division of Cell Growth and Regulation at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. In 1981, Pardee became a founding member of the

World Cultural Council The World Cultural Council is an international organization whose goals are to promote cultural values, goodwill and philanthropy among individuals. The organization founded in 1981 and based in Mexico, has held a yearly award ceremony since 198 ...

. Pardee became an emeritus professor at Dana-Farber in 1992. He became 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, a ...

in 1936, the National Academy of Sciences in 1968, 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 ...

in 2001.

PaJaMo

While on sabbatical in Paris with Jacob and Monod, Pardee was involved in an experiment that became known as PaJaMo. The PaJaMo experiment, and later work with his student Monica Riley showed that protein synthesis from a gene could begin almost as soon as the gene entered an E.coli cell. Prior hypotheses around the translation of genetic information into proteins had focused on

ribosomes Ribosomes ( ) are macromolecular machines, found within all cells, that perform biological protein synthesis (mRNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order specified by the codons of messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules to ...

, which turned over too slowly to enable the rapid synthesis seen in PaJaMo. On 15 April 1960, Jacob discussed the PaJaMo experiment's findings with

Sydney Brenner Sydney Brenner (13 January 1927 – 5 April 2019) was a South African biologist. In 2002, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and Sir John E. Sulston. Brenner made significant contributions to work ...

and Francis Crick at

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...

. This caused Brenner and Crick to formulate on the spot the hypothesis that yet another RNA species existed, messenger RNA.

Feedback Inhibition

With his student Richard Yates, Pardee discovered that biosynthesis of pyrimidine in ''Escherichia coli'' is subject to feedback inhibition. This represented an important step in understanding

metabolic regulation Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cell ...

The restriction point

In the early 1970s Pardee identified that the cell cycle has a point in the '

G1 phase The G1 phase, gap 1 phase, or growth 1 phase, is the first of four phases of the cell cycle that takes place in eukaryotic cell division. In this part of interphase, the cell synthesizes mRNA and proteins in preparation for subsequent steps lead ...

' where the cell, as it were, 'commits' to moving to the ' S phase'. Pardee published on this so-called '

', sometimes called the 'Pardee point', in 1974.

Students

Pardee's students included Allan Wilson, who gained his PhD at Berkeley under Pardee's supervision in 1961. Monica Riley was also a Ph.D. student with Pardee and contributed to his studies of mRNA.

References

External links

The 'PaJaMo' paper from the ''Journal of Molecular Biology''.

The 1974 PNAS paper on the Restriction Point.

''Portrait of an Editorial Board Member: Arthur B. Pardee'' in the journal Cell Cycle (1:2, 100-100, March/April 2002).

U.S. patents that list Arthur Pardee as an inventor.

interview: Science in the Blood, BioTechniques, 2006, vol. 41, no. 6, p. 659.

A landscape of pinnacles: The extraordinary career of Arthur Pardee ''Journal of Cellular Physiology''.
Arthur B. Pardee papers, 1949-2001. H MS c372. Harvard Medical Library, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Mass.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pardee, Arthur 1921 births 2019 deaths American biochemists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Founding members of the World Cultural Council University of California, Berkeley alumni California Institute of Technology alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty Harvard Medical School faculty Members of the American Philosophical Society Members of the National Academy of Medicine