ABSTRACT
We provide here an overview of the remarkable life and outstanding research of David (Dave) Charles Fork (March 4, 1929-December 13, 2021) in oxygenic photosynthesis. In the words of the late Jack Edgar Myers, he was a top 'photosynthetiker'. His research dealt with novel findings on light absorption, excitation energy distribution, and redistribution among the two photosystems, electron transfer, and their relation to dynamic membrane change as affected by environmental changes, especially temperature. David was an attentive listener and a creative designer of experiments and instruments, and he was also great fun to work with. He is remembered here by his family, coworkers, and friends from around the world including Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Israel, and USA.
Subject(s)
Oxygen , Photosynthesis , Humans , Australia , Electron Transport , GermanyABSTRACT
This paper is a tribute to a great scientist and an authentic "honest man" that was Jean Lavorel (1928-2021). He was a pioneer in research on the primary events of photosynthesis in algae, plants, and photosynthetic bacteria. He focused his attention on chlorophyll fluorescence and luminescence, and also on oxygen evolution, both experimentally (with laboratory-built refined apparatus) and theoretically. Many of his results are classical now. Besides a survey of his main achievements, most of them obtained by him alone, different reminiscences on the researcher and the person he was illustrate the rich personality of Jean Lavorel.
Subject(s)
Photosynthesis , Plants , Chlorophyll , History, 21st Century , Humans , OxygenABSTRACT
This article is not a survey of all the research made during the last half century at the 'Laboratoire de Photosynthèse' of the 'Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique' (CNRS) in Gif-sur-Yvette, but rather some personal recollections, as faithful as possible. Not all people could be mentioned and the scientists named here are mainly those who, at different stages of the laboratory's evolution, created their research teams, within or outside the laboratory. The laboratory, closed now as an administrative entity, was founded in 1953 by the CNRS in Gif-sur-Yvette, near Paris. Besides the emerging research groups in Paris and at Saclay, it was then the only one in France to be entirely dedicated to photosynthesis. Initially, the focus was on metabolic biochemistry of photosynthesis in whole plants and unicellular algae. In 1959, biophysics of primary and associated processes was added and in 1966, the laboratory was enlarged to include molecular genetics and, somewhat later, structural biology. Most of the early members of the laboratory have now gone offstage, but the research goes on, in Gif and elsewhere, thanks to the numerous high-level scientists that have been trained there. Most of the basic questions have now been answered, and interest has shifted in two directions, atomic and integrated, while many other facets of research are no longer specific to photosynthesis but part of more general biological problems, a normal situation for an area that has reached its maturity.
