David Kilper/WUSTL photo(Left to right) Cindy Richard-Fogal, Ph.D., research scientist in biology in Arts & Sciences, Elaine Frawley, graduate research assistant, and Robert Kranz, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, examine an E. coli culture. Kranz has been funded continuously by NIH for 24 years.
Robert Kranz has devoted much of his career to understanding cytochrome c, one of the most interesting of a large group of biological molecules called the cytochromes.
Few people have heard of the cytochromes, much less of cytochrome c. But if these molecules were suddenly to stop working, we would fall over dead. The cyanide pill the trapped spy crushes between his teeth kills him because the cyanide binds to cytochrome, preventing it from doing its job.
When Kranz first turned his attention to these molecules, scientists thought there was only one system (or biological pathway) for making cytochrome c. Now, thanks largely to his work, we know there are three different pathways.
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