Athel Cornish-Bowden

Not to be confused with Athelstan Hall Cornish-Bowden (land surveyor).

Athel Cornish-Bowden (born 3 April 1943) is a British biochemist known for his numerous textbooks, particularly those on enzyme kinetics and his work on metabolic control analysis.

Athel Cornish-Bowden
Cornish-Bowden in 2014
Born	Athelstan John Cornish-Bowden (1943-04-03) 3 April 1943 (age 82) Ashburton, England
Nationality	British, French
Education	Oxford University
Known for	Enzyme Kinetics, Metabolic Control Analysis
Spouse(s)	Mary Ann Reynolds, María de la Luz Cárdenas Cerda
Scientific career
Fields	Biochemistry, theoretical biology
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley, University of Birmingham, CNRS, Marseilles
Thesis	Studies of Pepsin catalysis  (1967)
Doctoral advisor	Jeremy R. Knowles
Other academic advisors	Daniel E. Koshland Jr.
Signature

Education and career

Athel Cornish-Bowden worked on pepsin catalysis.^[1] This began a life long pursuit of work on enzyme catalysis^[2] and in later years work on the control of metabolism.^[3] More recently he has also turned his attention to work related to the origin and nature of life.^[4]

He obtained his D.Phil. at Oxford with Jeremy R. Knowles,^[5] and carried out post-doctoral work at Berkeley with Daniel E. Koshland Jr.^[6]

Research

Cornish-Bowden has authored over 200 peer-reviewed papers and nine textbooks^[7][8] on topics related to enzyme kinetics, mathematics and historical perspectives in science. According to Google Scholar, the textbook Fundamentals of enzyme kinetics^[9] has been cited over 4000 times by secondary sources.^[10]

Cornish-Bowden's research can be divided into three primary areas: Enzyme kinetics, metabolic control, done mainly in collaboration with Jannie Hofmeyr, and the origin of life. The following lists some of the topics and selected references to the work carried out and published by Cornish-Bowden:

• Mechanisms of Pepsin Catalysis^[11][12]

• Binding of ligands to Proteins^{[13][14][15][16]}

• Kinetics of nitrite reductase^[17][18]

• Kinetics of nitrate reductase^[19]

• The evolution of macromolecules^[20][21]

• Properties of multienzyme systems^{[22][23][24][25][26]}

• The theory of self-organizing systems^{[27][28][29][30][excessive citations]}

Additionally, Cornish-Bowden has published a number of history of science papers commemorating the lives and achievements of historical figures in enzymology. ^[31][32][33] His current interests include the definition of life and the capacity for life to self-organize.

Major research contributions

Cornish-Bowden is most well known for his introduction of the direct-linear plot for estimating enzyme parameters,^[34] his work on hexokinase evolution and kinetics,^[35] and his insight into the control and regulation of metabolism.^[36]

Editorial and related work

Cornish-Bowden has participated on the editorial boards of various journals (the Biochemical Journal, the Journal of Theoretical Biology, FEBS Journal, BioSystems), and has been active on International Committees. He was secretary (and later chair) of the IUPAC-IUBMB Joint Committee on Biochemical Nomenclature^[37] and in that capacity convened the committee that prepared the current IUBMB recommendations on enzyme kinetics.^[38] He also contributed to recommendations on biochemical thermodynamics,^[39] and to proposals for system representation of biochemical networks.^[40]

Books

• Cornish-Bowden, Athel (1976). Principles of Enzyme Kinetics. London: Butterworths. ISBN 0408707216.
• Cornish-Bowden, Athel (2012). Fundamentals of Enzyme Kinetics (4 ed.). Weinheim: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9783527330744.
• Cornish-Bowden, Athel (1996). Analysis of Enzyme Kinetic Data. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-854877-X.
• Cornish-Bowden, Athel (1999). Basic Mathematics for Biochemists (2 ed.). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-854877-X.
• Cornish-Bowden, Athel (2016). Biochemical Evolution: the Pursuit of Perfection (2 ed.). Garland Science. ISBN 978-0-8153-4552-7.

Honours

In 1992, and again in 1993, Cornish-Bowden was appointed to the honorary chair Hermann Niemeyer F. at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Chile. In 2003 he was elected corresponding member of the Chilean Academy of Sciences.^[41]