Gerald Maurice Edelman

Edelman, Gerald Maurice 

Born July 1, 1929, in New York. American biochemist. Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the New York Academy of Sciences.

Edelman graduated from Ursinus College in 1950, and he received his M.D. in 1954. In 1957 he joined the staff of the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, and he became a professor there in 1966. Edelman’s research has dealt mainly with the primary and tertiary structure of proteins, especially antibodies (immunoglobulins), and with the structure of the cell surface. He applied new methods for the fractionation of antibodies and cells, and he developed a method of fluorescence spectroscopy for proteins. Edelman discovered that the gamma globulin molecule consists of four polypeptide chains.

Together with R. R. Porter, Edelman was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1972.