Benkovic's research over the years has focused on understanding how enzymes catalyze chemical reactions. "My early work involved looking at the mechanisms of organic reactions of small molecules that mimic biological processes, and extrapolate that information to how an enzyme might work," he explains.
During his years as a graduate student at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.--where he received a doctorate in 1963--and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, he coauthored a two-volume set of books defining the subject of bioorganic chemistry along with his research supervisor, Thomas Bruice (Bioorganic Mechanisms, Vols. I and II, New York, Benjamin, 1966).
"Over the years my work evolved to the study of the enzymes themselves," adds Benkovic, who now does research on a variety of enzymes and catalytic antibodies, and recently reported an antibody that catalyzes peptide synthesis. (R. Hirschmann et al., Science, 265:234-7, 1994).
Benkovic, 56, conducted his undergraduate ...
