Judith Klinman

Judith P. Klinman (born April 17, 1941, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American chemist, biochemist, and molecular biologist known for her work on enzyme catalysis. She became the first female professor in the physical sciences at the University of California, Berkeley in 1978, where she is now Professor of the Graduate School and Chancellor's Professor. In 2012, she was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, She graduated with her Ph.D. in 1966.

In 1966, Klinman travelled to the Weizmann Institute in Israel to conduct postdoctoral research with Prof. David Samuel. While in Israel, Klinman survived the Six-Day War of 1967. Klinman arranged a nonpaying apprenticeship at University College London (UCL) in the laboratory of Charles A. Vernon, and also took courses in biochemistry at UCL.

Klinman and her husband returned to the United States in 1968, and Klinman took up a position as a postdoctoral associate at the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR), a part of the Fox Chase Cancer Research Institute. There, she joined the laboratory of Irwin Rose, where she investigated the mechanism of aconitate isomerase, an enzyme that catalyzes the cis-trans isomerism of aconitate. Klinman also studied the stereochemical products of ATP citrate lyase and citrate synthase.

Independent career In 1972, Klinman was promoted to an independent staff scientist, equivalent to an Assistant Professorship, at the Institute for Cancer Research.

In 1978, she moved to University of California, Berkeley as an Associate Professor in Chemistry, She is currently the Professor of the Graduate School at the Departments of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology and the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences at the University of California, Berkeley. She currently serves as the Professor of the Graduate School.

Her group has discovered that room temperature hydrogen tunneling occurs among various enzymatic reactions, such as enzymatic C-H cleavage, and clarified the dynamics of tunneling process through data analysis. They have also discovered the quino-enzymes, a new class of redox cofactors in eukaryotic enzymes.

Honors and awards 1988 Guggenheim Fellowship 1992 and 2003-4 Miller Professorship, University of California, Berkeley.

1993 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

1994 Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1994 Repligen Award for Chemistry of Biological Processes. 1995 Alexander M. Cruickshank Lecturer 1996 Fellow of the Japanese Ministry of Science 2001 Elected to the American Philosophical Society 2003 David S. Sigman Lectureship Award from UCLA.

2005 Remsen Award, Maryland Section of the American Chemical Society 2006 Honorary Doctorate (Sc.D.(h.c.)) from the University of Pennsylvania 2007 Elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2007 Merck Award from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 2009 Elected to the Royal Society of Chemistry 2012 A. I. Scott Medal for Excellence in Biological Chemistry Research, Texas A&M University. 2014 National Medal of Science. 2015 Mildred Cohn Award in Biological Chemistry from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. 2017 Willard Gibbs Award from the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society 2018 Penn Chemistry Distinguished Alumni Award, University of Pennsylvania

Personal life Judith Klinman was married to Norman R. Klinman, who later became a Professor of Immunology and Microbial Science at The Scripps Research Institute. They raised four children together: Alexandra, Joshua, Andrew, and Douglas.

Klinman has a stepsister, who as of 2002 worked for the Small Business Administration.

Videos

2012 - National Medals of Science (National Science & Technology Medals Foundation) 2014 - Thriving in Science Lecture: "Not Going It Alone" 2018 - NSF/JHU Quantum Biology and Quantum Processes in Biology Workshop - "Tunneling in Biology" 2020 - Interviewing Eminent Scientists - Prof. Judith Klinman 2022 - G.N. Lewis Lecture - "At the Interface of Quantum and Classical Behavior in Enzyme Catalysis"