John Walker is an English chemist who shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997 with two other co-recipients. He is credited with elucidating the enzymatic mechanism underlying the creation of adenosine triphosphate, together with his Nobel Prize co-recipient Paul Boyer (ATP). Together, Boyer and Walker figured out how biological forms generate energy. While Boyer was instrumental in the development of ATP synthase, Walker is credited with determining the structure of ATP synthase using X-ray crystallography. Walker attended a research workshop in Cambridge in 1974 that changed the trajectory of his career. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin and afterwards at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Walker joined the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) at the University of Cambridge for a three-month experiment at Fred Sanger’s request. Walker’s scientific career was drastically transformed as a result of the post, which lasted two decades. Walker began applying protein chemistry techniques to membrane proteins as a result of his studies. He began studying the structure of the ATP synthase from bovine heart mitochondria and eubacteria, with the results providing new insight into how ATP is produced in the biological world.
Childhood and Adolescence
Thomas Ernest Walker and Elsie Lawton gave birth to John E Walker on January 7, 1941 in Halifax, England. His father worked as a stonemason, and his mother dabbled in music. He was the younger of two sisters.
He had his early education at Rastrick Grammar School, where he concentrated in physical science and mathematics during the last three years of his high school career. He captained the soccer and cricket teams at his high school.
In 1960, he entered at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, after completing his basic studies. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry four years later.
Career of John E. Walker
John Walker started working on peptide antibiotics with EP Abraham at the Sir Willian Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford in 1965. He was awarded a D Phil degree in the topic four years later.
Walker was fascinated by John Kendrew’s presented television programs, which popularized the astonishing discoveries in the field of molecular biology throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, while investigating peptide antibiotics. The findings of the field investigation were later published in 1966 in the book ‘The Thread of Life.’
He moved on to extend his knowledge and comprehension of molecular biology after being deeply affected by Kendrew’s television show and book. He accomplished this by reading works such as JD Watson’s Molecular Biology of the Gene and William Hayes’ Bacterial Genetics. He also learned about the issue through attending lectures on protein structure by David Phillips, an Oxford professor of molecular biology, and nucleus and cytoplasm by Henry Harris, a pathology professor.
Walker spent five years studying overseas. He studied at the University of Wisconsin’s School of Pharmacy from 1969 to 1971, and then in France from 1971 to 1974. He was funded by NATO and EMBO grants while working at the CNRS in Gif-sur-Yvette and afterward the Institut Pasteur.
Walker attended a ‘Sequence Analysis of Proteins’ research program in Cambridge in 1974. Ieuan Harris of the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) and Richard Perham of the Cambridge University Department of Biochemistry co-organized the workshop. Walker met Fred Sanger at the session for the first time.
Walker approached Ieuan Harris and offered to join the latter’s group after hearing about it through Sanger. From June 1974 to June 1975, he was integrated into the Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry (PNAC) Division of the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology for three months. What began as a part-time position grew into a full-time position that lasted more than two decades, radically changing Walker’s scientific career!
When Walker arrived at LMB, it was home to a number of well-known scientists, including Max Perutz, Fred Sanger, Francis Crick, Cesar Milstein, and others. Walker’s resume included using direct methods to analyze the sequences of proteins from G4 and mitochondria.
Walker identified triple overlapping genes in G4 where all three DNA stages encode proteins while analyzing protein sequences. Walker used protein chemistry techniques to study membrane proteins in 1978. He discovered that cytochrome c oxidase subunits I and II are encoded in mitochondrial DNA. He eventually discovered the details of the mitochondrial genetic coding that had been altered.
Walker initiated structural studies of the ATP synthase from bovine heart mitochondria and eubacteria, in addition to applying protein chemistry techniques to membrane proteins. This research led to a thorough sequencing analysis of the complex from multiple species, as well as the atomic resolution structure of the F catalytic domain of the enzyme from bovine mitochondria, revealing new information about how ATP is generated in the biological world.
The binding change mechanism and rotary catalysis for the ATP synthase, one of the catalytic mechanisms postulated by Paul Boyer, were supported by Walker’s atomic resolution structure. Walker’s research was published in 1994, earning him a part of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997.
Walker and his colleagues have created the majority of the crystal structures of mitochondrial ATP synthase in the PDB throughout the years, including transition state structures and protein with bound inhibitors and antibiotics. Walker’s lab at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit has produced crystal bacterial complex I and cryo-EM maps of mitochondrial complex I and vacuolar-type ATPases.
He was named Director of the MRC Dunn Human Nutrition Unit in Cambridge in 1998. The unit’s name was changed to Mitochondrial Biology Unit in 2009, and it now focuses on the mechanics of energy conversion in the mitochondrion, as well as the organelle’s function in human health and disease. He is the Emeritus Director and Professor at the MRC until now.
Major Projects of John E. Walker
The most significant contribution made by John Walker came in the second half of the 1970s when he began extending protein chemistry techniques to membrane proteins. He then moved on to studying the structure of ATP synthase from bovine cardiac mitochondria and eubacteria. This research shed new light on how ATP is produced in the biological world. His findings supported the ATP synthase’s binding change mechanism and rotary catalysis, which is one of the catalytic mechanisms. Walker established the enzymatic process underlying the creation of adenosine triphosphate with Paul Boyer.
Achievements & Awards
Walker was awarded the AT Clay Gold Medal in 1959.
The University of Pennsylvania awarded him the Johnson Foundation Prize in 1994.
In 1996, he received the Biochemical Society’s CIBA Medal and Prize, as well as the European Bioenergetics Congress’s Peter Mitchell Medal.
Walker received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1997 for identifying the enzymatic process that underpins the creation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Paul Boyer and split the reward equally.
Walker was knighted in 1999 for his contributions to molecular biology.
He received the Copley Medal, the Royal Society’s highest accolade, in 2012 for his extraordinary contribution to biochemistry and molecular biology.
Personal History and Legacy
In 1963, Walker married Christina Westcott. Esther and Miriam, the couple’s two daughters, were born to them.
John E. Walker’s Net Worth
John E. Walker is one of the wealthiest Molecular Biologists and one of the most well-known. John E. Walker’s net worth is estimated to be $1.5 million, according to Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider.