Albert_Kluyver

Albert Kluyver
Albert Jan Kluyver ForMemRS[1] (3 June 1888 – 14

May 1956) was a Dutch microbiologist and Albert Kluyver
biochemist.[2][3][4]
Career
In 1926, Kluyver and Hendrick Jean Louis Donker
published the now classic paper, "Die Einheit in der
Biochemie" ("Unity in Biochemistry").[5] The paper
helped establish Kluyver's vision that, at a biochemical
level, all organisms are unified. Kluyver famously
expressed the idea with the aphorism: "From elephant
to butyric acid bacterium – it is all the same".[6] The
paper, and other work from Kluyver's lab, helped
support both the concept of biochemical unity as well Born Albert Jan Kluyer
as the idea of "comparative biochemistry", which 3 June 1888
Kluyver envisioned as biochemically equivalent to Breda
comparative anatomy. The concept established a
Died 4 May 1956 (aged 67)
theoretical basis for studying chemical processes in
Nationality Dutch
bacteria and extrapolating those processes to higher
organisms.[7] Awards Fellow of the Royal Society[1]
Copley Medal (1953)
The concepts of "biochemical unity" and "comparative
biochemistry" were both very influential and probably Scientific career
Kluyver's most significant work. Kluyver's best known Fields Microbiology
student, C. B. van Niel, commented on his mentor's Biochemistry
scientific influence and noted that by the middle of the
20th century, his work on biochemical unity was no longer cited. His aphorism was sufficiently
widespread that in 1961 François Jacob and Jacques Monod paraphrased it, without mentioning Kluyver,
as "that old axiom 'what is true for bacteria is also true for elephants'" to justify the genetic code's
universality.[8] His career was profoundly influenced by World War II and the Nazi occupation of the
Netherlands.
Awards and honours

Kluyver is associated with the Delft school of microbiology where he was the successor to Martinus
Beijerinck.[4] In 1926 he became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[9]
He is considered the father of comparative microbiology. In 1953, he won the Copley medal.
In 1956, botanist Johannes P. Van der Walt published Kluyveromyces, which is a genus of ascomycetous
yeasts in the family Saccharomycetaceae and named in Kluyver's honour.[10] In 1981, the genus Kluyvera
comprising bacteria from the former enteric group 8 was named after him. [11]
See also
Clostridium kluyveri
References
1. Woods, D. D. (1957). "Albert Jan Kluyver 1888-1956". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of
the Royal Society. 3: 109–126. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1957.0008 (https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frsb
m.1957.0008). S2CID 72424038 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:72424038).
2. Spath, Susan B. (1999). C.B. Van Niel and the Culture of Microbiology, 1920–1965 (http://os
kicat.berkeley.edu/record=b13429288~S53) (PhD). University of California, Berkeley. 308t
1999 385.
3. Singleton, J. (2000). "From bacteriology to biochemistry: Albert Jan Kluyver and Chester
Werkman at Iowa State". Journal of the History of Biology. 33 (1): 141–180.
doi:10.1023/A:1004775817881 (https://doi.org/10.1023%2FA%3A1004775817881).
PMID 11624416 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11624416). S2CID 25720004 (https://api.
semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:25720004).
4. Theunissen, B. (1996). "The beginnings of the "Delft tradition" revisited: Martinus W.
Beijerinck and the genetics of microorganisms". Journal of the History of Biology. 29 (2):
197–228. doi:10.1007/BF00571082 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF00571082).
PMID 11613330 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11613330). S2CID 45109075 (https://api.
semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:45109075).
5. Kluyver, Albert J.; Donker, H.J.L. (1926). "Die Einheit in der Biochemie" (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=IIZ_GwAACAAJ). Chem. Zelle Gewebe. 13: 134–190.
6. Kamp, A.F.; La Rivière, J.W.M.; Verhoeven, W. (1959). Albert Jan Kluyver: his life and work
(https://archive.org/details/albertjankluyver00kluy). Interscience Publishers. p. 20 (https://arc
hive.org/details/albertjankluyver00kluy/page/20).
7. Kluyver, Albert Jan (1931). The chemical activities of micro-organizms (https://books.google.
com/books?id=xY9ceu9E0f4C). University of London Press. p. 5.
8. Monod, Jacques; Jacob, François (1961). "General Conclusions: Teleonomic Mechanisms
in Cellular Metabolism, Growth, and Differentiation" (http://symposium.cshlp.org/content/26/
389.extract). Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol. 26: 389–401.
doi:10.1101/SQB.1961.026.01.048 (https://doi.org/10.1101%2FSQB.1961.026.01.048).
PMID 14475415 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14475415).
9. "Albert Jan Kluyver (1888 - 1956)" (http://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=au
thorDetail&aId=PE00001291). Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved
28 July 2015.
10. "Kluyveromyces Walt, 1956" (https://www.gbif.org/species/2599075). www.gbif.org.
Retrieved 9 May 2022.
11. "Genus Kluyvera" (https://lpsn.dsmz.de/genus/kluyvera). LPSN - List of Prokaryotic names
with Standing in Nomenclature. Retrieved 16 July 2022.
External links
Works by Albert Kluyver (https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/creator/6022) at the Biodiversity
Heritage Library
Works by Albert Kluyver (https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL5144703A) at Open Library
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albert_Kluyver&oldid=1245493957"

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Albert Jan Kluyver ForMemRS[1] (3 June 1888 – 14

Awards and honours

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