Harold Edwin Umbarger

Harold Edwin Umbarger (17 July 1921, Shelby, Ohio – 15 November 1999, Carmel, Indiana) was an American bacteriologist and biochemist.

Biography Umbarger grew up in Mansfield, Ohio and graduated from Mansfield Senior High School in 1939. At Ohio University he graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1943 and a master's degree in zoology in 1944. For two years from 1944 to 1946 he served in the U.S. Navy as a hospital corpsman. In 1945 he served aboard the USS Rescue. In 1950 he received a Ph.D. in bacteriology from Harvard University. is entitled Studies on the Interactions Involved in the Biosynthetic Mechanisms of Isoleucine and Valine in Escherichia Coli. From 1950 to 1959 Umbarger did research at Harvard. At Purdue University he was appointed in 1964 a full professor and in 1970 Wright Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences. He held that professorship until his retirement. Feedback inhibition in biochemistry had been reported in an almost unknown paper a decade earlier by Zacharias Dische.

H(arold) Edwin Umbarger had a major role in defining the pathways that living organisms employ to produce branched-chain amino acids (L-leucine, L-isoleucine, and L-valine), which are required in all proteins. He also played a pivotal role in identifying the biochemical mechanisms that bacterial and yeast cells use to modulate the synthesis of these amino acids in order to match their utilization in protein synthesis. 1971 — Elected a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 1975 — Rosenstiel Award, jointly with Arthur B. Pardee (for independent research). 1976 — Elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences. succeeded (in 2012) by Stanton B. Galvin.

Selected publications