Kamen, Martin David definition of Kamen, Martin David in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Kamen, Martin David (kā`mən), 1913–2002, American biochemist, b. Toronto, Canada, grad. Univ. of Chicago (B.S., Ph.D. 1937). He discovered carbon-14, the radioactive isotope radioactive isotope or radioisotope, natural or artificially created isotope of a chemical element having an unstable nucleus that decays, emitting alpha, beta, or gamma rays until stability is reached.
..... Click the link for more information. of carbon carbon [Lat.,=charcoal], nonmetallic chemical element; symbol C; at. no. 6; at. wt. 12.011; m.p. about 3,550°C;; graphite sublimes about 3,375°C;; b.p. 4,827°C;; sp. gr. 1.8–2.1 (amorphous), 1.9–2.3 (graphite), 3.15–3.
..... Click the link for more information. used to trace biochemical pathways and mechanisms and to date archeological and anthropological objects (see dating dating, the determination of the age of an object, of a natural phenomenon, or of a series of events. There are two basic types of dating methods, relative and absolute.
..... Click the link for more information. ). He also carried out extensive research that underlies much of our understanding of the process of photosynthesis photosynthesis (fō'tōsĭn`thəsĭs)
..... Click the link for more information. . Because of his association with Russian consular officials, whom he had met socially, he was declared a security risk in 1944 and dismissed from his job. A few years later, he was brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a committee (1938–75) of the U.S. House of Representatives, created to investigate disloyalty and subversive organizations. Its first chairman, Martin Dies , set the pattern for its anti-Communist investigations.
..... Click the link for more information. and his passport was revoked. Kamen spent more than a decade trying to clear his name, but in 1955 he won a libel suit against the Chicago Tribune. He wrote Radiant Science, Dark Politics: A Memoir of the Nuclear Age (1985).