William Howard Stein (1911–80) was an American biochemist. He was a co-winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the composition and performance of the pancreatic enzyme ribonuclease.
Born in New York City, Stein studied at Harvard and Columbia universities and joined the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University,) where he became a professor of biochemistry in 1954.
Between 1949 and 1963, Stein and his colleague Dr. Stanford Moore interpreted how ribonuclease catalyzes the digestion of food. They analyzed amino acids and peptides obtained from proteins, and then applied their analysis techniques to determine the structure of ribonuclease. After winning the 1972 Nobel Prize, Stein and Moore interpreted the whole sequence of deoxyribonuclease, a molecule twice as complicated as the ribonuclease.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by William Howard Stein
Keep high aspirations, moderate expectations, and small needs.
—William Howard Stein
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