Arda Green

Arda Alden Green (May 7, 1899 – January 22, 1958) was born in Prospect, Pennsylvania, and was an American biochemist who co-discovered the neurotransmitter serotonin and discovered the reaction responsible for firefly bioluminescence.

Early life and education Arda Green was born in Prospect, Pennsylvania, daughter of Vennis A. Green and Melva Stevenson Green. Her father taught chemistry, and her sister Metta Clare Green (Loomis) earned a PhD in physics. The Green family moved to California when Arda was a girl. Arda Green earned undergraduate degrees in chemistry and philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley in 1921; she continued into graduate study of philosophy, but soon shifted her focus to medicine. She earned a medical degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1927.

She started medical studies at Berkeley, but took a year off to study under protein biochemist Edwin J. Cohn at Harvard University at the encouragement of Herbert M. Evans. and graduated in 1927. where she worked with Alfred C. Redfield on respiration in porpoises and a project on hemoglobin in certain fish. She collaborated with Ronald M. Ferry on studies into hemoglobin's pH dependence and would later continue characterizing hemoglobin's solubility and interactions with carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Green isolated pure phosphorylase, a key enzyme in the Cori cycle pathway that breaks down the sugar storage molecule glycogen, playing a critical role in the elucidation of glycogen metabolism. She also isolated and studied, in collaboration with F. M. Bumpus, molecules important in blood pressure regulation including angiotensinogen (the precursor to angiotensin) and angiotonin (hypertension). She isolated firefly luciferase, discovered the reaction that makes fireflies glow, and began work on bacterial bioluminescence, but was unable to complete it due to illness. from the American Chemical Society in autumn 1957 and it was formally awarded posthumously in April 1958.

Personal life Green died in January 1958, from breast cancer, at the age of 58.