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Biochemical Society

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Biochemical Society
Formation1911
Legal statusNot-for-profit organisation
PurposeAdvancing molecular bioscience
Location
  • London, UK
Membership
Over 4,600
Chief Executive
Kate Baillie
Main organ
Biochemical Society Council
AffiliationsFEBS
WebsiteBiochemical Society

The Biochemical Society is a learned society in the United Kingdom in the field of biochemistry, including all the cellular and molecular biosciences.

Structure

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It currently has over 4,600 members, 80% of which are in the UK. It is affiliated with the European body, Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS). The Society's President (as of 2023) is Julia Goodfellow.[1]

The Society's headquarters are in London.

History

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The society was founded in 1911, under the name of the Biochemical Club.[2][3][4] An informal preliminary meeting on 21 January 1911 at University College, London was organised by J. A. Gardner and R. H. A. Plimmer and attended by 32 people. The first meeting was on 4 March 1911, with 38 members present; an initial decision to exclude women was rescinded the following year. The first committee consisted of Plimmer (honorary treasurer and secretary), H. E. Armstrong, W. M. Bayliss, A. J. Brown, H. H. Dale, J. A. Gardner, A. E. Garrod, W. D. Halliburton, Arthur Harden, F. G. Hopkins, F. Keeble, Benjamin Moore, W. Ramsden and E. J. Russell. By the end of 1911, there were 132 members.[4]

In 1912, it purchased the existing Biochemical Journal from Moore and E. Whitley for £150,[3][4] with the new editors being Bayliss and Harden. The name formally changed to the Biochemical Society in 1913, with Hopkins being appointed the first chair. In the early years eight annual meetings were generally held, predominantly in London, but also in Oxford, Cambridge, Rothamsted, Glasgow, Edinburgh and elsewhere. Membership had risen to over a thousand by 1944.[4] Plimmer was the society's first historian;[5] his 1949 history is described by the American science historian Robert E. Kohler as an "important primary document" for the early history of biochemistry in the UK, and in particular for why the society's founding members chose to separate from the older Physiological Society.[6] An updated history was published in 1969 by Richard A. Morton.[6]

By the late 1960s, according to the American science historian Pnina Abir-Am, the society had established itself as a "well-organized nationwide power base for biochemists", and a "powerful" body whose activities went beyond the usual ones of a learned society to encompass "guarding the professional status, even welfare, of its members".[2] In 1969, a subcommittee of the society chaired by Hans Krebs published a well-received report about the relationship between biochemistry and the discipline of molecular biology, stating that all biology was in part molecular, in response to a 1968 report by the Working Group on Molecular Biology, chaired by John C. Kendrew.[2] The report proposes using the term "biochemistry" as a shorthand to include molecular biology as well as biophysics.[6] That year the society celebrated its 500th meeting, at which Kendrew was among the speakers.[2]

The society's first permanent headquarters was at 7 Warwick Court in Holborn, purchased in 1966.[7] In 1990, the headquarters of the society moved to Portland Place,[8] and in 2005, to purpose-built offices in Holborn.[citation needed] In 2009, the headquarters moved again to Charles Darwin House, near Gray's Inn Road.[citation needed]

Past presidents include Professor Ron Laskey, Sir Philip Cohen, and Sir Tom Blundell.

Awards

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The Society grants a number of awards, nine annually and others either biennially or triennially, to acknowledge excellence and achievement in both specific and general fields of science. The awards include the Morton Lecture, the Colworth Medal, and the Centenary Award.[1]

Publishing

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The society's wholly owned publishing subsidiary, Portland Press, publishes a magazine, The Biochemist, and several online academic journals:

The Society's flagship publication, the Biochemical Journal, celebrated its centenary in 2006 with the launch of a free online archive back to its first issue in 1906.

Other activities

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The society holds archives of material from some prominent biochemists, and had recorded oral history interviews on video with around twenty scientists in 1988.[9] The society published several editions of a "renowned" booklet by V. Booth with advice on how to write a scientific paper.[10]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Biochemical Society". Biochemical Society.
  2. ^ a b c d Pnina G. Abir-Am (1992). The Politics of Macromolecules: Molecular Biologists, Biochemists, and Rhetoric. Osiris 7: 164–191 JSTOR 301771
  3. ^ a b Lemmon, Mark A. (2022). Prosperous Future. Journal of Biochemistry 172 (3): 129–130 doi:10.1093/jb/mvac036
  4. ^ a b c d R. H. A. Plimmer. The History of the Biochemical Society 1911–1949. (Cambridge University Press; 1949)
  5. ^ H. Blaschko (1983). Frederick Hughes Scott and His Contribution to the Early History of the Transmitter Concept. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 37 (2): 235–247 JSTOR 531489
  6. ^ a b c Robert E. Kohler (1975). The History of Biochemistry: A Survey. Journal of the History of Biology 8 (2): 275–318 JSTOR 4330637
  7. ^ T. W. Goodwin. History Of The Biochemical Society 1911–1986, p. 41 (Biochemical Society; 1987)
  8. ^ John Lagnado, ed. Biochemical Society: The Last 25 Years, p. 8 (Portland Press; 2011)
  9. ^ Nicholas Russell (1988). Towards a History of Biology in the Twentieth Century: Directed Autobiographies as Historical Sources. The British Journal for the History of Science 21 (1): 77–89 JSTOR 4026863
  10. ^ D. A. Preece (1987). The Language of Size, Quantity and Comparison. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series D (The Statistician) 36 (1): 45–54 JSTOR 2988274

Further reading

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