UCLAPaul Boyer, a biochemist known for deducing how the vital cellular fuel ATP gets made, died of respiratory failure on June 2. He was 99 years old.
“Paul Boyer inspired both trust and ambition in his fellow faculty members, and had perhaps the most positive character of anyone most of us have ever known,” his friend and colleague David Eisenberg of the University of California, Los Angeles, says in a statement. “He combined true modesty with unstoppable persistence and unmatched personal interactions.”
Boyer grew up in Provo, Utah. His mother died of Addison’s disease when he was 15. He would later write in an autobiography for the Nobel, “Discoveries about the adrenal hormones, that could have saved her life, came too late. Her death contributed to my later interest in studying biochemistry. . .” He attended Brigham Young University, then did his graduate work in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin. After ...
