Death of a Great Man

uwnews.org | University of Washington’s Dr. Edwin G. Krebs, recipient of 1992 Nobel Prize for discovering biological switch in cells, dies at 91 | University of Washington News and Information: "University of Washington's Dr. Edwin G. Krebs, recipient of 1992 Nobel Prize for discovering biological switch in cells, dies at 91
Leila Gray leilag@u.washington.edu


UW
Dr. Edwin G. Krebs received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research conducted at the UW in the 1950s. He was UW professor emeritus of pharmacology and biochemistry at the time of his death Dec. 21, 2009, at the age of 91, in Seattle.


Dr. Edwin G. Krebs, who shared the 1992 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering a biological regulatory mechanism in cells, died Monday, Dec. 21, in Seattle. The cause was complications from progressive heart failure. He was 91.

Dr. Krebs joined the faculty at the University of Washington School of Medicine in 1948, two years after the school opened. He spent most of his career at the UW. For decades after his retirement as professor emeritus of pharmacology and biochemistry, he walked regularly from his home to his UW lab to conduct research and meet with graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. He was an impeccable gentleman with a ready smile who liked a good story.

In the early 1950s, Dr. Krebs and his UW colleague, Dr. Edmond Fisher, were working on another scientific problem when they made an unexpected finding. They noticed that an enzyme that helps liberate energy in muscle cells (called glycogen phosphorylase) was activated by chemical reaction with phosphate, and de-activated by its removal. Adding and removing the phosphate was like turning on and off the switch that controlled the enzyme's activity."