Biochemist/Olympic Gold Medal Winner Britton Chance 1913-2010
jlp
Very early this morning (16th November) at the age of 97, the
Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Johnson Foundation and
School of Medicine lost a loved and admired friend and colleague.
Britton Chance died quietly, at peace in the Hospital of the
University of Pennsylvania. He was spirited and still scientifically
active right to the end. His wife Shoko Nioka was at his side.
As many of you all know, Brit lived a storied life in science and
engineering and sailing, there are mountains to reflect upon. He has
been associated with Penn since the nineteen thirties. By the end of
the thirties, while still in his twenties, he had invented the now
standard stopped flow device to measure enzyme reaction times in
scattering biological materials and had proved the existence of the
enzyme-substrate complex in enzyme action. During the forties Brit
became the second Director of the Johnson Research Foundation. In the
fifties he started and became Chair of the Department of Biophysics
and Physical Biochemistry to open the Johnson Foundation to graduate
student training. Renamed when it joined with Biochemistry in the
seventies, Brit surely cast the die for the adventurous style and high
quality of research pursued today in the Department of Biochemistry
and Biophysics and Johnson Foundation. After he “retired” to become
emeritus in the early eighties Brit launched a new set of research
initiatives in biological imaging including in the nineties, the
creation of optical diagnostics now an burgeoning field at the
interface of basic science, technical development and clinical
application. This includes use of imaging systems to detect breast
tumors, hemorrhage deep within tissues, and human brain function in
cognitive activity. His work has been honored in many ways. He has
long been a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the
American Philosophical Society and, like Ben Franklin before him, a
Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London. In 1974 he was awarded
the National Medal of Science and numerous other honors and
international prizes have followed. His generosity closer to home is
reflected in his founding of the Chance Chair for the Department of
Radiology. This and his many contributions to the School of Medicine
and University are recognized by the naming of the Stellar-Chance
Laboratories at the dedication in 1995. And from start to finish he
sailed, picking up a gold medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics in
Helsinki on the way!