1779 INGEN-HOUSZ, Jan (1730 – 1799)

Experiments on vegetables, discovering their great power of purifying the common air in the sun-shine, and of injuring it in the shade at night. To which is joined, a new method of examining the accurate degree of salubrity of the atmosphere.

Discovery of photosynthesis. Ingen-Housz showed that the green parts of plants, when exposed to light, fix the free carbon dioxide of the atmosphere, but that in darkness plants have no such power. Thus he proved that…

GMN 103 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/8969

1957 CALVIN, Melvin Ellis (1911 – 1997); BASSHAM, James Alan (1922 – 2012)

The path of carbon in photosynthesis.

Discovery of the Calvin cycle, also known as the Calvin–Benson–Bassham (CBB) cycle, or reductive pentose phosphate cycle or C3 cycle — a series of biochemical redox reactions that take place in the stroma of chloropla…

GMN 7386 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/9558

1985 DEISENHOFER, Johann (1943 – ); MICHEL, Hartmut (1948 – ); HUBER, Robert (1937 – ); ET AL

Structure of the protein subunit in the photosynthetic reaction centre of Rhodopseudomonas viridis at 3 Å resolution.

Discovery of the three-dimensional structure of a protein complex found in certain photosynthetic bacteria, called the photosynthetic reaction center. This was the first elucidation of the 3D crystal structure of any …

GMN 11060 · https://historyofmedicine.com/id/13256