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Vincent Massey (November 28, 1926 – August 26, 2002) was an Australian biochemist and enzymologist best known for his contributions to the study of flavoenzymes. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 for his use of physical biochemistry to relate flavin chemistry to flavin enzymology.

Biography

Family life

Massey grew up in a family of fishermen in a small village outside of Berkeley in New South Wales, Australia. Massey became interested in science in high school, to the point of performing home chemistry experiments. He was the first in his family to go to university and he obtained a Bachelor of Science from the University of Sydney in biochemistry in 1947.

He met his wife Margot, a survivor of the Holocaust, while he was working at a government laboratory Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) as a research biochemist. They married during his time there and left for the University of Cambridge in 1950, never returning to Australia. Vincent and his wife had three children.

Academic career

After obtaining a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Sydney, Massey worked as a research biochemist for the CSIRO. He worked there for three years, and in that time published five papers on the inhibition of the TCA cycle in nematodes by fluoroacetate. The CSIRO awarded him with a fellowship that would allow him to pursue his doctoral degree at the University of Cambridge.

Massey did his thesis work with Malcolm Dixon. His thesis project revolved around the enzyme fumarase (not a flavoprotein), for example a study of the effects of temperature. However, Massey was exposed to flavins in the lab through working with other students. After completing his thesis, he moved to the United States for a summer to work with Robert A. Alberty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Here, he continued studying fumarase and published in 1954 possibly the first thorough paper studying steady-state kinetics of an enzyme as a function of pH.

A colleague from Cambridge, Tom Singer, had accepted a position at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and recruited Massey to work with him to investigate the enzyme succinate dehydrogenase. Singer had recently discovered that FAD was covalently bound to the enzyme. This started Massey's career on flavins and flavoproteins.

In 1957, Massey returned to England to be a lecturer at the University of Sheffield in the Biochemistry Department. By 1961, he was promoted to senior lecturer. In 1963, Massey changed his career path and took a professorship position the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Massey was awarded the Henry Russel Lectureship in 1995, the highest recognition given to faculty members at the University of Michigan.

His major scientific contributions include the identification and kinetic characterization of lipoamide dehydrogenase and pioneering the methods of stopped-flow and rapid-freeze electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) to study enzyme mechanisms. He published over 400 papers and at least an additional 50 book chapters, symposia or reviews, for example on artificial flavins as mechanistic probes. He also had a significant mentoring role; his students included Graham Palmer, Charles H. Williams, Rowena G. Matthews, on NADPH dehydrogenase ("old yellow enzyme"), David P. Ballou, and Paul Engel on butyryl-CoA dehydrogenase, among others.

Scientific achievements

• I.C.I. Fellow, University of Cambridge (1953-1955)
• Guest Lecturer, University of Illinois (1960)
• Teacher, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts (1962)
• A.S.B.C. Lecturer (1963)
• Humboldt Award (1973)
• University of Konstanz, Fachbereich Biologie, Konstanz, West Germany, Guest Professor (1973-1974)
• Permanent Guest Professor, University of Konstanz, West Germany (1975- )
• Senior Fellow, Michigan Society of Fellows (1975-1980)
• Elected Fellow of Royal Society of London (1977)
• Biomedical Research Council Distinguished Faculty Lectureship, University of Michigan (1979)
• Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award, The University of Michigan (1983)
• Visiting Professor Institute of Applied Biochemistry, Mitake, Japan (1985)
• Visiting Professor, Yokohama City University School of Medicine, Japan (1988)
• Henry Russel Lecturer University of Michigan (1995)
• National Academy of Sciences Member, Biochemistry (1995)
• J. Lawrence Oncley Distinguished University Professorship (1995- )
• Michigan Scientist of the Year (1998)
• Jubilee Lecture and Harden Medal, Biochemical Society of Great Britain (1999)

References

1. ^ "Vincent Massey". National Academy of Sciences. National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
2. Williams, C. H.; Ballou, D. P. (2003). "Vincent Massey 28 November 1926 - 26 August 2002 Elected FRS 1977". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 49: 335–350. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2003.0019. ISSN 0080-4606.
3. ^ Ballou, David P; Williams, Charles H; Coon, Minor J (2002). "Vincent Massey (1926–2002)". Trends in Biochemical Sciences. 27 (12): 641–642. doi:10.1016/S0968-0004(02)02222-3. ISSN 0968-0004.
4. ^ Ballou, David P.; Williams Jr., Charles H. (2013). "Vincent Massey" (PDF). Biographical Memoirs. Retrieved February 1, 2015.
5. Massey, Vincent; Rogers, W. P. (1949). "The Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle in Nematode Parasites". Nature. 163 (4154): 909. Bibcode:1949Natur.163..909M. doi:10.1038/163909a0. PMID 18131520.
6. Massey, V. (1953). "Studies on fumarase. 3. The effect of temperature". Biochemical Journal. 53 (1): 72–79. doi:10.1042/bj0530072. PMC 1198105. PMID 13032036.
7. Alberty, Robert A.; Massey, Vincent; Frieden, Carl; Fuhlbrigge, Armin R. (1954). "Studies of the Enzyme Fumarase. III.1 the Dependence of the Kinetic Constants at 25° upon the Concentration and pH of Phosphate Buffers". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 76 (9): 2485–2493. doi:10.1021/ja01638a053. S2CID 100746202.
8. Singer, Thomas P.; Kearney, Edna B.; Massey, Vincent (1956). "Observations on the flavin moiety of succinic dehydrogenase". Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics. 60 (1): 255–257. doi:10.1016/0003-9861(56)90415-5. PMID 13283607.
9. Moore, E G; Cardemil, E; Massey, V (1978). "Production of a covalent flavin linkage in lipoamide dehydrogenase - reaction with 8-Cl-FAD". J. Biol. Chem. 253 (18): 6413–6422. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(19)46948-2. PMID 681358.
10. Brissette, Pierre; Ballou, David P.; Massey, Vincent (1989). "Determination of the dead time of a stopped-flow fluorometer". Analytical Biochemistry. 181 (2): 234–238. doi:10.1016/0003-2697(89)90235-2. hdl:2027.42/27776. PMID 2510550.
11. Palmer, G; Massey, V (1969). "Electron paramagnetic resonance and circular dichroism studies on milk xanthine oxidase". J. Biol. Chem. 244 (10): 2614–2620. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(18)83444-5. PMID 4306032.
12. Ghisla, S; Massey, V (1986). "New flavins for old - artificial flavins as active-site probes of flavoproteins". Biochem. J. 239 (1): 1–12. doi:10.1042/bj2390001. PMC 1147232. PMID 3541919.
13. ^ Olson, J S; Ballou, D P; Palmer, G; Massey, V (1974). "Reaction of xanthine-oxidase with molecular-oxygen". J. Biol. Chem. 249 (14): 4350–4362. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(19)42427-7. PMID 4367214.
14. Macheroux, Peter; Mulrooney, Scott B.; Williams, Charles H.; Massey, Vincent (1992). "Direct expression of active spinach glycolate oxidase in Escherichia coli". Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Gene Structure and Expression. 1132 (1): 11–16. doi:10.1016/0167-4781(92)90046-3. hdl:2027.42/29898. PMID 1324737.
15. Matthews, R G; Massey, V (1969). "Isolation of old yellow enzyme in free and complexed forms". J. Biol. Chem. 244 (7): 1779–1786. doi:10.1016/S0021-9258(18)91750-3. PMID 4388613.
16. Engel, Paul C.; Massey, V. (1971). "Green butyryl-coenzyme a dehydrogenase. An enzyme–acyl-coenzyme a complex". Biochemical Journal. 125 (3): 889–902. doi:10.1042/bj1250889. PMC 1178195. PMID 5145911.

• 1926 births
• 2002 deaths
• Australian biochemists
• University of Michigan faculty
• Academics of the University of Sheffield
• Burials at Forest Hill Cemetery (Ann Arbor, Michigan)