296 Cis & Trans

Obituaries

James Frederick Bonner

1910-1996

At a time when most professors were concerned with their dignity, James Bonner would insist that everyone "Just call me 'James'!" And everyone did.

James was exceptionally bright, articulate, imaginative, and was infectiously enthusiastic. In addition to t-Lis research and teaching, he influenced several generations of plant scientists through the three editions of his text, Plant Bzochemistry (1950, 1965, 1975). Long before it was fashionable, James was promoting the idea that physiological pro- cesses can be understood through biochemistry. As a logical extension, he became one of the first plant biochemists to embrace molecular biology.

His fields of research read like the chapters of a comprehensive textbook: hormones and development, pectins, respiration and oxida- tive phosphorylation, the synthesis of rubber and other isoprenoids, vitamins as growth substances, metabolism of auxin, proteins, dark fixation of CO~, camellia culture, tissue culture, nucleoprotein particles, photoperiodism, water stress, world population and the food supply, RNA synthesis, histones and chromatin structure, regulation of tran- scription by histones, serum albumin genes, sapogenins, ... His coau- thors, furthermore, read like a Who's Who qf Plant Biology: including Kenneth Thimaizn, F.T. Addicott, Karl Hamner, Sam Wildman, Arthur Galston, Robert Bandurski, Jake Biale, R.B. Park, Robert Cleland, Frank Salisbury, Peter Albersheim .... and Jerome Vinograd, and Werner von Braun! While histones and chromatin from peas, calf, and rat dominated his research from the early '60s on, he continued to find time for his many other interests, which included mountain climbing and skiing.

James was the oldest son of Walter Bonner, a professor of chemistry at the University of Utah. Among the seven Bonnet children were four biochemists--including Walter, Jr., and David- - two physical chemists, and a mathematician. After receiving his Ph.D. at Caltech in 1934, James went off to Leiden and the ETH as a National Research Council Fellow. He returned to Caltech in 1935 as a research associate, rose to professor, and kept things exciting until his retirement in 1981. "Retirement" is inaccurate, for in his leisure, James proceeded to found a biotech com- pany, Phytogen, to climb mountains, and so forth. Wherever he is now, I'm sure things are stirring.

Readers will find a reflection of James's personality in his Chapters From My L!fe (Ann. Rev. Plant Physiol. Plant Mol. Biol. 45:1-23, 1994).

--CAP