Gösta Pettersson is an

emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

Lund University Lund University () is a Public university, public research university in Sweden and one of Northern Europe's oldest universities. The university is located in the city of Lund in the Swedish province of Scania. The university was officially foun ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. He was born in 1937 in

Varberg Varberg () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Varberg Municipality, Halland County, Sweden, with 35,782 inhabitants in 2019. Varberg and all of Halland are well known for their "typical west coast" sandy beaches. In Varberg th ...

, Sweden. He gained his Ph.D. at Lund University in 1966 on the basis of a thesis on toluquinones (

natural products A natural product is a natural compound or substance produced by a living organism—that is, found in nature. In the broadest sense, natural products include any substance produced by life. Natural products can also be prepared by chemical s ...

), and his early research was mainly concerned with fumigatin and other products of fungal metabolism. The turning point in Pettersson's career came in the wake of a kinetic study of an enzyme from ''

Aspergillus fumigatus ''Aspergillus fumigatus'' is a species of fungus in the genus ''Aspergillus'', and is one of the most common ''Aspergillus'' species to cause disease in individuals with an immunodeficiency. ''Aspergillus fumigatus'', a saprotroph widespread in ...

''. This paper has had virtually no influence on the progress of biochemistry, having never been cited in half a century except for once by its author, but it marked the beginning of the work on enzymes and kinetics for which Pettersson is best known.

Alcohol dehydrogenase

The major experimental focus of Pettersson's work on the kinetics of enzyme-catalysed reactions was the enzyme

alcohol dehydrogenase Alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) () are a group of dehydrogenase enzymes that occur in many organisms and facilitate the interconversion between alcohols and aldehydes or ketones with the reduction of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) to N ...

, principally the enzyme from horse liver, but to some degree from other sources, such as the insect ''

Drosophila melanogaster ''Drosophila melanogaster'' is a species of fly (an insect of the Order (biology), order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the "vinegar fly", "pomace fly" ...

''. His work in this area concerned both "classical" steady-state kinetics, such as pH-dependence, as well as study of transients in the mechanism. In recognition of his contributions to the study of alcohol dehydrogenase Pettersson was invited to write a review on the topic in collaboration with Judith Klinman.

Analysis of enzyme kinetic data

In parallel with his study of alcohol dehydrogenase, Pettersson developed methods in enzyme kinetics based on mathematical modelling and valid statistical analysis. On the basis of this expertise he has written a text book (in Swedish) on enzyme kinetics. In a number of papers Pettersson argued against the interpretations of their kinetic data proposed by other authors, in relation for example to wheat-germ hexokinase and hexokinase from rat liver.

Multienzyme systems

Pettersson developed mathematical models of multi-enzyme systems, most notably the Calvin cycle, and he entered into the controversy over whether direct transfer of the product of an enzyme-catalysed reaction to an enzyme of which it is the substrate ( metabolite channelling) is a real phenomenon adequately supported by the experimental results claimed to demonstrate it.

Global warming

After retirement, Pettersson has studied the question of

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

and has published a critical book against alarmists, in which the

greenhouse effect The greenhouse effect occurs when greenhouse gases in a planet's atmosphere insulate the planet from losing heat to space, raising its surface temperature. Surface heating can happen from an internal heat source (as in the case of Jupiter) or ...

is critically discussed from a scientific and kinetic perspective.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pettersson, Gosta Swedish biochemists People connected to Lund University 1937 births Living people