Recollections

Edwin Webb was born in 1921 in Dorset, UK. He was awarded an Open Scholarship to Clare College Cambridge in 1939, and graduated in 1942 with a BA (first class Honours). He obtained his PhD in Biochemistry, working in Malcolm Dixon’s laboratory. Malcolm recognized a good thing when he saw it, and arranged for Edwin to become a key member of a government-supported group that he was forming to study defenses against war gases. This resulted in a series of important papers on the interaction of the ‘nerve gases’, such as di-isopropyl fluorophosphonate (DFP), with cholinesterase and other enzymes (see e.g., 1, 2). For many years after Edwin had left Cambridge a quart bottle labelled DFP stood gathering dust in the corner of a fume hood. It was argued that nobody could dispose of it, because it was officially government property. He also studied the effects of British Anti-lewisite (BAL; 2,3-dimercaptopropanol), which had been developed as an antidote to the arsine Lewisite (2-chloroethenyl)arsinous dichloride isomers. As an early example of chelation therapy, BAL was most effective, although it was a particularly nasty smelling compound. It was also toxic at higher doses, and Edwin established that this might involve its ability to inhibit a number of metal-containing enzymes (3). Edwin remained at Cambridge, where he was awarded a prestigious Beit Memorial Research Fellowship and later became a University Lecturer, until 1962. He published a number of important papers on enzyme purification and behaviour during that time, including influential studies on the complex interactions of anions with arylsulphatase (EC 3.1.6.1) (see e.g., 4) and a widely cited theoretical study of the process of protein purification by salting out (5). Then he moved to Australia to accept the Foundation Chair of Biochemistry at the University of Queensland. That period was notable, among other things for his collaboration with Burt Zerner on the enzyme carboxylesterase (EC 3.1.1.1), known colloquially as aliesterase. The publication of seven papers in the same issue of the ACS journal Biochemistry (five on carboxylesterase (6 – 10), plus two on urease; EC 3.5. 1.5) (11, 12) ought to have been a contender for an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. His friendship with Malcolm Dixon proved crucial for subsequent developments in the field of enzymology, since Malcolm had been asked to write a textbook on enzymes to replace the book Enzymes published in 1930 by J. B. S. Haldane (13). Malcolm agreed, provided that Edwin would be willing to write it with him. The publishers became somewhat frustrated by what they believed to be lack of any progress, particularly because they were not shown any draft chapters. In fact that was the way that Malcolm and Edwin wished to work; by assembling all the information that they needed and developing clear ideas about what they intended to say before starting to write anything. When they did in fact feel ready write and produce the complete book, the publishers were reported to have told them that they had never before encountered authors who were so slow to start writing and so quick to complete when they did eventually start. Of course they were more than content with what they got. Enzymes by Dixon and Webb (14) became a classic. It covered all aspects of enzymology, as they were known at the time, in a clear and approachable form. It was never possible to say which of them wrote which parts, because it was a true collaboration with each making Received 15 September 2006; accepted 2 October 2006 Address correspondence to: Keith Tipton, Department of Biochemistry, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland. E-mail: ktipton@tcd.ie IUBMBLife, 58(12): 734 – 736, December 2006