Dr. Edwin Gerhard Krebs was a preeminent American biochemist whose pioneering work fundamentally transformed our understanding of cellular regulation mechanisms. Born in Lansing, Iowa on June 6, 1918, he earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois and his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1943. Following service in the U.S. Navy as a medical officer during World War II, he conducted postdoctoral research under Nobel Laureates Carl and Gerty Cori at Washington University, where he began his studies on muscle glycogen phosphorylase. Krebs joined the University of Washington faculty in 1948, established himself as a leading researcher in enzymology, and later served as chair of biological chemistry at the University of California Davis from 1968 to 1977 before returning to the University of Washington as chair of pharmacology.
Krebs' most significant contribution emerged through his collaborative work with Edmond H. Fischer in the early 1950s, when they discovered the process of reversible protein phosphorylation, revealing how cells regulate enzyme activity through the addition and removal of phosphate groups. Their seminal 1955 paper demonstrated that glycogen phosphorylase, the enzyme responsible for energy release from glycogen, functions as a molecular switch activated by phosphorylation and deactivated by dephosphorylation. This discovery unveiled a universal regulatory mechanism that governs countless cellular processes including metabolism, cell division, and signal transduction across all living organisms. Krebs further advanced this field by purifying cAMP-dependent protein kinase in 1968, establishing protein phosphorylation as central to hormone action and cellular communication, and later contributed to the discovery of the MAP kinase pathway in cell regulation.
For this transformative work, Krebs and Fischer were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1992, following recognition with the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize in 1989. Beyond his research achievements, Krebs served as editor of the Journal of Biological Chemistry for two decades and as president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 1985, significantly shaping the field through editorial leadership. He coedited the multivolume works The Enzymes and Protein Phosphorylation, cementing his influence on biochemical literature. Krebs' legacy endures through the countless researchers who continue to explore the intricate signaling networks he helped illuminate, with his discoveries remaining fundamental to modern molecular biology and therapeutic approaches for cancer, immunology, and metabolic disorders.
