Professor Emeritus Donald Herman Voet, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, has passed away on April 11, 2023. Alongside his wife, Judith G. Voet, he authored highly regarded biochemistry textbooks that have become a common fixture in undergraduate and graduate curricula.
He employed X-ray crystallography to examine the structures of biologically significant molecules, aiming to understand their structure-function relationships. His projects included yeast inorganic pyrophosphatase and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF).
Donald Herman Voet, born on November 29, 1938, pursued chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, USA, and earned his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1967 from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, under William N. Lipscomb, Jr. After conducting postdoctoral research at the laboratory of Alexander Rich at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1966–1969, Cambridge, MA, USA, he joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania as a professor.
Donald Voet served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Biochemical and Molecular Biology Education.
Selected Publications
- Donald Voet, Judith G. Voet, Charlotte W. Pratt, Fundamentals of Biochemistry, Life at the molecular level (5th ed.), John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NH, USA, 2016. ISBN: 978-1-119-42357-7
- Judith G. Voet, Donald Voet, Passing the torch, Biochemical and Molecular Biology Education 2014. https://doi.org/10.1002/bmb.20796
- Akif Uzman, Jerry Johnson, William Widger, Joseph Eichberg, Donald Voet, Judith G. Voet, Charlotte W. Pratt, Student Companion to Accompany Fundamentals of Biochemistry (4nd ed.), John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2012.
- Donald Voet, Judith G. Voet, Biochemistry (4th ed.), John Wiley & Sons Inc., Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-470-57095-1
- Donald Voet, Judith G. Voet, Charlotte W. Pratt, Fundamentals of Biochemistry (2nd ed.), John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2006.
- D. Voet, J. G. Voet, Solutions Manual to Accompany Biochemistry (3rd ed.), John Wiley & Sons Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2004.
- D. Voet, J. G. Voet, Biochemistry (3rd ed.), John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2004.
- Donald Voet, Crystal structure of 1-[3-(indol-3-yl)propyl]thymine. A model for protein-nucleic acid interactions,
Journal of the American Chemical Society 1980, 102(6), 2071-2074. https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00526a050 - D. Voet, W. N. Lipscomb, Molecular Structure of Carboranes. A 1,2-Dicarbaclovododecaborane Derivative, B10H10(CCH2Br)2, Inorg. Chem. 1979, 3, 1679. https://doi.org/10.1021/ic50022a004
- D. Voet, W. N. Lipscomb, Molecular and Crystal Structure of B7C2H11(CH3)2, Inorg. Chem. 1967, 6, 113-119. https://doi.org/10.1021/ic50047a026
The legendary Biochemist and academic leader no more but his greatest Biochemistry books and research innovations are ideal and immortal.