Alexander R. Todd

The Right Honourable The Lord Todd OM FRS FRSE
Todd in 1957
Born	Alexander Robertus Todd (1907-10-02)2 October 1907 Cathcart, Scotland
Died	10 January 1997(1997-01-10) (aged 89) Oakington, England
Alma mater	University of Glasgow University of Frankfurt am Main Oriel College, Oxford
Awards	Davy Medal (1949) Royal Medal (1955) Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1957) Paul Karrer Gold Medal (1963) Copley Medal (1970) Lomonosov Gold Medal (1978)
Scientific career
Fields	Chemistry, Biochemistry
Institutions	Lister Institute University of Edinburgh University of London University of Manchester University of Cambridge Christ's College, Cambridge University of Strathclyde Hatfield Polytechnic
Doctoral advisor	Walter Borsche, Sir Robert Robinson
Doctoral students	J. Rodney Quayle

Alexander Robertus Todd, Baron Todd OM FRS FRSE (2 October 1907 – 10 January 1997) was a British biochemist whose research on the structure and synthesis of nucleotides, nucleosides, and nucleotide coenzymes gained him the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1957.

Early life and education

Todd was born in Cathcart in outer Glasgow, the son of Alexander Todd, a clerk with the Glasgow Subway, and his wife, Jane Lowry.

He attended Allan Glen's School and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a bachelor's degree in 1928. He received a doctorate from Goethe University Frankfurt in 1931 for his thesis on the chemistry of the bile acids.

Todd was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and, after studying at Oriel College, Oxford, he gained another doctorate in 1933.

Career

Todd held posts with the Lister Institute, the University of Edinburgh (staff, 1934–1936) and the University of London, where he was appointed Reader in biochemistry.

In 1938, Alexander Todd spent six months as a visiting professor at California Institute of Technology, eventually declining an offer of faculty position. Todd became the Sir Samuel Hall Chair of Chemistry and director of the Chemical Laboratories of the University of Manchester in 1938, where he began working on nucleosides, compounds that form the structural units of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA).

In 1944, he was appointed to the 1702 Chair of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge, which he held until his retirement in 1971. In 1949, he synthesised adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD). Todd served as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago in Autumn 1948 and University of Sydney in 1950.

In 1955, he helped elucidate the structure of vitamin B₁₂, although the final formula and definite structure was determined by Dorothy Hodgkin and her team, and later worked on the structure and synthesis of vitamin B₁ and vitamin E, the anthocyanins (the pigments of flowers and fruits) from insects (aphids, beetles) and studied alkaloids found in cannabis. He served as chairman of the Government of the United Kingdom's advisory committee on scientific policy from 1952 to 1964.

He is credited as the first person to synthesize H4-CBD and H2-CBD from Cannabidiol by hydrogenation as early as 1940.

He was elected a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge in 1944 and was Master from 1963 to 1978. He became Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde in 1975, and a visiting professor at Hatfield Polytechnic (1978–1986). Among his many honours, including over 40 honorary degrees, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1942, a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1955, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957, and the American Philosophical Society in 1965. He was President of the Royal Society from 1975 to 1980 and became a member of the Order of Merit in 1977.

In 1981, Todd became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.

Personal life and death

In 1937, Todd married Alison Sarah Dale (d.1987), daughter of Nobel Prize winner Sir Henry Dale, who, as Todd did, served as president of the Royal Society of London. They had a son, Alexander Henry, and two daughters, Helen Jean and Hilary Alison.

Todd died in Cambridge on 10 January 1997 at the age of 89 following a heart attack.

Honours

Todd was honoured as a Nieuwland Lecturer at the University of Notre Dame in 1948, an Arthur D. Little Visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954, and a Hitchcock Lecturer at University of California, Berkeley, in 1957.

He was knighted as Sir Alexander Todd in 1954 and was created a Life Peer as Baron Todd of Trumpington in the County of Cambridge on 16 April 1962.

He is commemorated by a blue plaque erected by the Royal Society of Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge.

Coat of arms of Alexander R. Todd

Crest In front of an open book Proper bound Or a fox passant guardant Gules. Escutcheon Gules a chevron between in chief two foxes' masks and in base a serpent embowed biting the tail Or. Supporters Dexter an ounce and sinister a fox each sable bezanty and gorged with a ducal coronet with chain reflexed over the back Or pendant from the coronet by a like chain an escutcheon blue celeste. Motto Faire Sans Dire

Bibliography

• Todd, Alexander (3 December 2009). A Time to Remember. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-12673-1.

See also

• Atherton–Todd reaction
• History of RNA biology
• List of RNA biologists
• List of presidents of the Royal Society

Further reading

• Reynolds, David (2005), Christ's: A Cambridge College Over Five Centuries, Macmillan, ISBN 0-333-98988-0: "The Era of Todd, Plumb and Snow", by Sir David Cannadine.

External links

• Obituary in the Independent
• Obituary in The New York Times
• Lord Todd on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1957 Synthesis in the Study of Nucleotides
• Portraits of Alexander R. Todd at the National Portrait Gallery, London
• Interviews with Nobel Prize winning scientists: Lord Alexander Todd, British Broadcasting Corporation, c. 1985. Video of an interviewed with Lewis Wolpert. Duration 37 minutes.
• The Papers of Lord Todd held at Churchill Archives Centre