Calvin and Lawrence at the old radiation lab

Photo credit :www.flickr.com & www.britannica.com

Textbooks divide and wars unite the most unexpected stories. Two stories that began from the old radiation lab in university of California, Berkeley are hardly ever housed together in our hallowed syllabi. So it is not unnatural that the story of the atomic bomb and the dark cycle of photosynthesis are unconnected to the “science student” in general.

Let us check into the site Bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/Biotech/calvin.html which has an interesting anecdote to whet our appetite. At the end of World War II, on 2ND September, 1945 ,when Japan surrendered, it is said, Ernest Lawrence, the then director of the Radiation Laboratory suggested to Melvin Calvin that it was time to do something useful with the stable radioactive C-14.This was not just the director speaking but the person who held US patent 1948384 and the Nobel Prize for invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements”.

So after the end of the II World War, the Old Radiation Laboratory, at Berkeley where Ernest Lawrence had housed his 37-inch cyclotron, became home to the Bio-Organic Chemistry Group. It was headed by Melvin Calvin with Andrew Alm Benson joining as its deputy director and James Basham coming in later as a doctoral student. They pioneered the use of carbon -14 tracer to work out the pit stops on a chemical pathway, generating 22 papers as they reported their discoveries.Their contributions lead to the pathway being called the Calvin-Benson-Bassham(CBB)cycle or commonly the Dark Cycle of Photosynthesis. It unravelled the main mechanism by which plants make food by converting a single carbon containing carbondioxide into a six carbon glucose.

Stories in science, however enticing, important and attention grabbing rarely begin with once upon a time and end up with happily ever after, especially in the 19th century. Thus when text books carry dividends of science to students, there must be place for a “room with a view” to seek perspective. In the great scientific effort that came out of the Radiation Laboratory, quite a few elements did not end happily ever after. The cyclotron contributed fission grade uranium and plutonium to Project Manhattan, that finally unleashed the Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in Japan on August 6 &9, 1945.Only one out of the three main team members that revealed the Calvin-Benson-Bassham(CBB)cycle, was awarded the Nobel Prize; so the cycle is more often than not called the Calvin Cycle.

On the other hand, some things not only ended happily ever after but gave rise to positive dividends ever after. So Berkeley scientists would go on to discover 16 elements which is more than any other university in the world till date. Among the elements discovered are Mendelevium, Curium, Seaborgium, Berkelium, Einsteinium, Fermium and Lawrencuim, all named in honour of the scientists whose work initiated and took forward the “Atomic Age”. As Melvin Calvin’s Bio-Organic Group out grew the Old Radiation Laboratory, he is said to have personally designed the new Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics. The design came to be known as the “Roundhouse” or “Calvin Carousel”, characterised by its circular structure and open spaces to carry forward the inter disciplinary interaction that had been the strength of his photosynthesis group. It was finally renamed the Melvin Calvin Laboratory when he retired in 1980 with its present work focusing on cell and molecular biology.

Main resources:

1. www.Bancroft.berkeley.edu/Exhibits/Biotech/calvin.html
2. Encyclopedia Britannica
3. Wikipedia