Melvin Calvin

Melvin Calvin was born on April 8th, 1911 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Melvin Calvin’s parents were immigrants from Europe, his father, Elias Calvin, was from Kalvaria, Lithuania and his mother, Rose Herwitz, was from Russian Georgia. Melvin Calvin showed an early interest in science, more towards the disciplines of chemistry and physics. At the Michigan College of Mining and Technology (now MTU, Michigan Technical University), Calvin received his Bachelor’s degree in chemistry, making him the 1st chemistry major at the college in 1931. Four years later in 1935 Melvin Calvin received a doctorate in chemistry with his dissertation on the electron affinity of halogen atoms at the University of Minnesota.
Later in his academic career, Calvin would

attend a couple of Universities to conduct research, which includes, the University of Manchester in England and the University of California, Berkeley. Some major influential people that helped and gave inspiration to Calvin and were Michael Polanyi, Joel Henry Hildebrand, Gilbert N. Lewis, and Ernest O. Lawrence. Calvin’s works would include hydrogen activation, coloring of organic compounds using certain tracers, studying the electronic structure of organic molecules, molecular genetics, chelation and solvent extraction that would help isolate and purify Plutonium from Uranium, and on the Calvin cycle (Light-independent phase, Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle, or reductive pentose phosphate cycle). Melvin Calvin’s work on the Calvin Cycle is what awarded him the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1961. Melvin Calvin’s life was influenced by several people, he went to many universities to do research and also to teach students, and discovered a fundamental metabolic process that is one of the key mechanisms for understanding how life thrives.

Early Life
Calvin grew up in St.Paul, Minnesota living in a middle-class neighborhood, where most of his relatives lived. Young Calvin would spend his time collecting rocks, watching the birds fly by, and curiously explore the world around him. Calvin had a very early interest in science at such a young age where most children today would be watching Power Rangers or Rocko’s Modern Life. The material that made up daily items made Calvin interested. “What were these materials made of?” According to his family, “he would dismantle his toys in order to discover how they worked, then reassemble them.” (WorldandISchool, 1994) Young Calvin thought to himself. Such early curiosity is what most likely sparked his interest in science, but more notably in the discipline of chemistry.
His mother Rose Herwitz was a housewife who raised Calvin and his sister, Sandra.

Calvin’s father, Elias, worked as a cigar maker after moving to America from Kalvaria,Lithuania. When Elias was entering America from Ellis Island, he had to change his last name to Calvin from his Lithuanian name. Elias soon lost his job as a cigar maker and had to relocate to find a new job as an auto mechanic. The Calvin family had to move to Detroit, Michigan so Elias could support his family as a new mechanic for the Cadillac Motor-Car Company. Elias Calvin became a fine auto-mechanical worker but didn’t want his son to go into such manually demanding work, so he would tell Calvin to follow his interest in academics. Calvin’s father helped fuel his son’s interest in

science.
Sometime around when Calvin was 12, he worked at a grocery store as his family, even though middle-class, were still not able to acquire enough money to meet their financial bills. Looking at the fruits and vegetables at the store, he started thinking again about the composition of the organic materials within the produce. Not only did he see this in the produce, but also in everything else in the store. The notebook paper, paper bags, the dyes, the loaves of bread, the soap, the aluminum and tin cans. Everything in this store made Calvin spark some curiosity into their chemistry. These small insights made him realize how important chemistry is to life, as without the chemical processes, the fruit wouldn’t be here and neither would any of us.
Melvin Calvin around the age of 12 or 13 would perform his “first scientific experiment” with a childhood friend of his. Whether or not Calvin knew about John Mayow’s experiments with inverting cups underwater with a candle inside is unknown, but he did something similar with a grasshopper. Melvin Calvin and his friend took a grasshopper and submerged the insect until it looked as if it had drowned. They let the grasshopper dry for a couple of minutes and miraculously saw the grasshopper come back to life. This made Melvin Calvin curious about why the insect comes back to life. Today we know that grasshoppers have spiracles which lie on the exoskeleton of the organism allowing water to pass or not to pass, which helps contain the diatomic oxygen levels secure for a certain period time.
Already in his teens, he would attend high school at Central high school in Detroit, Michigan. Still in love and interested in science he continued his studies and told many of his teachers and classmates about pursuing a degree in college focused on science. (chemistry) One of his physics teachers did not like or encourage Calvin’s ideas about continuing on in the science discipline. Calvin’s physics teacher believed Calvin could not be a physics teacher as Calvin was too impulsive and didn’t want to collect all the data. His physics teacher said, “ that Calvin could never achieve that goal because he was too eager to reach conclusions.” (Bailey e.d., 2012) Later on Calvin said “that the physics teacher didn’t really understand the process of scientific advancement; if one were really to know all the data, a computer alone would be all that would be necessary to derive a conclusion.” (Gale, 2000) Attending The City College of Detroit (now Wayne State), Calvin would begin his college education. Calvin would go on to the Michigan College of Mining and Technology at Houghton on a full scholarship. Things were looking up for the enthusiastic future Nobel winner.
Academics
The Michigan College of Mining and Technology didn’t have any previous students trying to earn a major in chemistry, so Calvin would be their first student pursuing a bachelor’s in chemistry. Since the chemistry majors were relatively new to the school, Calvin had to take certain classes most undergraduate students today wouldn’t necessarily take. These courses included mineralogy, paleontology, geology, and civil engineering. The courses that he took during his time at MCMT later contributed to his idea that all sciences are interrelated, where one can not work without the knowledge of the other. In 1931, Melvin Calvin earned his Bachelor’s in chemistry from the Michigan College of Mining and Technology and became the first student to acquire it at this institute.

Influences
In Melvin Calvin’s office there were four photographs: Michael Polanyi, Joel Hildebrand, Gilbert N. Lewis, and Ernest O. Lawrence. These scientists were his mentors: Polanyi for introducing him to the chemistry of phthalocyanine; Hildebrand for bringing him to Berkeley; Lewis, perhaps his most influential teacher; and Lawrence, who provided him the opportunity to work with the new scientific tool of radioactive carbon, which enable
Work

Nobel Prize
Before we get into the topic of the nobel prize winning work on the discovery of the metabolic pathway of the Calvin cycle.

We should discuss what is a carbohydrate, photosynthesis, and the light-dependent stage (light phase) of photosynthesis including the organelles and proteins involved. Usually people address carbohydrates as sugars or “hydrates of carbon”, usually monosaccharides such as glucose, sucrose, and galactose are well known. A more organic chemistry view of carbohydrates is a polyhydroxylated chain of carbon which contain hydroxylated substituents. We can aldoses or ketoses which is a carbohydrate that contains an aldehyde (aldose) or ketone

(ketose).
Photosynthesis is the process that plants, cyanobacteria, and algae use in converting light-energy to chemical energy for food. Carbon dioxide, and water are used to make glucose and a by-product diatomic oxygen. Glucose, a carbohydrate, helps give food to the plant and also help make the plant grow. This process if a form of anabolism which is the building up of complex molecules. The carbon in carbon dioxide gets reduced from a high oxidation state of +4 to a highly reduced oxidation state in glucose which is zero in net.
What makes finding out about the chemical process of photosynthesis such a novel discovery? Photosynthetic energy produced globally by these photosynthetic organisms creates approximately 130 TeraWatts of energy. If humans could tap into this we could have a more efficient way to power our technology producing better lives for us and future humans. The chemical equation we see in photosynthesis 6 CO2 + 6 H2O → C6H12O6 + 6 O2 shows that we get our oxygen from these organisms. Killing trees at an extreme rate could lessen the oxygen we currently have to breath and increase the carbon dioxide leading to a warmer and colder planet Earth.
Lastly, we will look at the light-dependent stage of photosynthesis which uses photons, light-particles in a pack, from the sun to create the energy reagents we need for the light-independent stage (dark phase or Calvin cycle) of photosynthesis. The reagents we are creating in this phase are adenosine triphosphate ATP and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate NADPH. In the light-dependent phase of photosynthesis the oxygen we breathe is also created here and not in the dark phase.
The proteins and molecules in the light phase of photosynthesis are located in the thylakoid membrane of the chloroplast which is the organelle that facilitates photosynthesis. The proteins and molecules are respectively photosystem (II), pheophytin, plastoquinone, cytochrome b2f protein complex, plastocyanin, and photosystem (I). B-carotene, xanthophylls, flavonoids, and chlorophyll a and b are not necessarily found in the thylakoid membrane, but they do help in the process when they are near the embedded proteins.
The electron shuttle pathway shows the steps on how the photosynthetic cell makes the reagents, ATP and NADPH. Photons from the sun hit chlorophyll a or b and this excites the molecules moving electrons, small negatively charged particles found in the nucleus, from the chlorophyll to photosystem II. These electrons travel in a z scheme with the help of the embedded proteins to pheophytin, then to plastoquinone, next to cytochrome b2f protein complex, next to plastocyanin, and lastly they reach photosystem I. Through this electron transfer energy is being created to form ATP by ATPase from the precursor adenosine diphosphate, ADP. NADPH is also being formed by giving a hydrogen to NADP+.
Once the electrons get to photosystem I and our reagents are made, ATP and NADPH, this is where Melvin Calvin, Andrew Benson, and James Bassham figured out what is receiving the carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and how the glucose is made.