Rodney Robert Porter
Porter, Rodney Robert (1917-1985) was a British biochemist who helped determine the chemical structure of antibodies. Porter's work closely related to research done by American biochemist Gerald Maurice Edelman. The two scientists shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
Porter was born on Oct. 8, 1917, in Newton-le-Willows, near Liverpool, England, the son of Joseph L. Porter, a railway clerk, and his wife, Isobel. Porter earned a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Liverpool University in 1939. During World War II (1939–1945), he served in the Royal Artillery, the Royal Engineers, and the Royal Army Service Corps. After the war, Porter studied biochemistry at Cambridge University, earning a Ph.D. degree in 1948. From 1949 to 1960, he performed research at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. In 1960, Porter became a professor of immunology at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in London.
When Porter began his research in the 1950's and 1960's, the antibody molecule was too large for scientists to study it with the chemical means then available, and little was known about its structure. Antibodies are carried in blood, tears, and secretions of the nose and the intestines. They attack disease-causing organisms such as bacteria and viruses.
Porter used a plant chemical called papain, also used as a meat tenderizer, to split the antibody into smaller pieces that he could analyze. Like all proteins, antibodies are made up of smaller molecules called amino acids. Porter was the first to propose that antibodies are Y-shaped, with each arm of the Y consisting of two chains of amino acids. He discovered that the arms of the Y have the part of the antibody that attaches to a foreign substance. He published the results of his research in 1959. In 1960, he combined his findings with Edelman's to determine the exact order of all 1,320 amino acids in the antibody molecule.
In 1967, Porter chaired Oxford University's biochemistry department, where he served until his death. He was a fellow of the Royal Society and a foreign member of the American National Academy of Sciences.