Gilbert Smithson Adair FRS (1896–1979) was an early

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, res ...

scientist who used osmotic pressure measurements to establish that

haemoglobin Hemoglobin (haemoglobin BrE) (from the Greek word αἷμα, ''haîma'' 'blood' + Latin ''globus'' 'ball, sphere' + ''-in'') (), abbreviated Hb or Hgb, is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein present in red blood cells (erythrocyte ...

was a

tetramer A tetramer () ('' tetra-'', "four" + '' -mer'', "parts") is an oligomer formed from four monomers or subunits. The associated property is called ''tetramery''. An example from inorganic chemistry is titanium methoxide with the empirical formula ...

under physiological conditions. This conclusion led him to be the first to identify

cooperative binding Molecular binding is an interaction between molecules that results in a stable physical association between those molecules. Cooperative binding occurs in binding systems containing more than one type, or species, of molecule and in which one of th ...

, in the context of oxygen binding to haemoglobin. Gilbert Smithson Adair was born on 21 September 1896 in

Whitehaven Whitehaven is a town and port on the English north west coast and near to the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. Historically in Cumberland, it lies by road south-west of Carlisle and to the north of Barrow-in-Furness. It i ...

, son of Harold and Anna Mary Adair (née Jackson), who were

Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...

. Gilbert and his sister Anna were initially taught at home by a governess. Later, Gilbert was taught at the Quaker

Bootham School Bootham School is an independent Quaker boarding school, on Bootham in the city of York in England. It accepts boys and girls ages 3–19, and had an enrolment of 605 pupils in 2016. It is one of seven Quaker schools in England. The schoo ...

, where he was a boarder. The family, meanwhile had moved to Egremont, where Harold Adair was managing director of Wyndham Mining Company Ltd. an iron ore mine. Adair entered

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 ...

from 1915 to 1917, gaining a first in

Natural Sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

. He was soon employed by the Food Investigation Board, a wartime research group set up by the

DSIR Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, abbreviated DSIR was the name of several British Empire organisations founded after the 1923 Imperial Conference to foster intra-Empire trade and development. * Department of Scientific and Industria ...

to determine how to prevent wastage of food, particularly fish, meat, fruits, etc. on cargo ships. In 1920, he became a research student at King's College, and was made an official Fellow in 1928, granting him five years to devote to research. In 1931, he became assistant director of the Physiological Laboratory in Cambridge. He was a Reader in Biophysics from 1945 until his retirement in 1963. Adair was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1939. He married Muriel Elaine Robinson in Cambridge in 1931. Muriel had entered

Girton College Girton College is one of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge, 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1 ...

in 1918, and went on to obtain a research fellowship at Newnham. She died on 2 January 1975. As an incidental historical note, Adair provided the purified

that

Max Perutz Max Ferdinand Perutz (19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002) was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin. He went ...

used for the first structure determination of any protein (by X-ray crystallography). Gilbert Smithson Adair died in Cambridge on 22 June 1979.

Adair equation

The equation

y = \frac

is called the ''Adair equation'' for four binding sites. (Analogous equations can be written for other numbers of sites.) It expresses the degree of saturation at equilibrium

y

as a function of ligand concentration

a

and a series of dissociation constants

K_1

K_2

K_3

K_4

of the binding sites, assuming no interaction between them. All equations for models of cooperativity of binding at equilibrium are special cases of the Adair equation, even if they look superficially as if they are not.

Adair equation

References

Further reading