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Fong Discovered the Calvin Cycle: Molecular Model of Photosynthesis

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Fong Discovered the Calvin Cycle: Molecular Model of Photosynthesis Fong Discovered the Calvin Cycle: Molecular Model of Photosynthesis This post records the author Francis K. Fong's finding of the Calvin cycle, or dark reactions in photosynthesis, as a federal tax conspiracy. It is the subject of an investigation reported on NSFfunding.com's Website enabled by the corroboration of Steve C. Beering, former Purdue president and former chairman of the National Science Board. Fig.A. Beering [pictured, center] corroborated [right] that the Calvin cycle is a financially motivated fraud, enabled by Purdue's news release published in Chem. & Eng. News 33, 2809 (July 4, 1955) [left] On May 15, 1995, Beering wrote, Fig.A: "In 1951. Purdue Trustees through Roger Branigin acquired the Lawler tract with federal reimbursement funds paid to Purdue Research Foundation, ("PRF") and improved it with additional federal funding obtained upon Purdue's news release of July 1959 (sic 1955), contrary to fact, that the federally funded Lawrence Radiation Laboratory had demonstrated, in vitro, the dark photosynthetic cycle. [See, Fig.A left] Meanwhile, the Trustees built Purdue's Calumet Extension Center on Woodmar Realty land purchased in bankruptcy proceedings presided over by 7th Circuit Judge Swygert, and incorporated Purdue-Calumet Development Foundation ("PCDF")." Fig.B. Comparision in support of Beering's corroboration that the news story, left, for establishing the dark cycle, reaction (D), left, is contrary to Calvin's original papers on the Berkeley group's experimental proof of reaction (L), right. For a detailed report on Beering's corroboration of the financial impetus for establishing the Calvin cycle, see, the December 13, 2011 post on the origins of the Calvin cycle. A proof, that the Calvin cycle resulted from the news release issued by Purdue contrary to the original papers published by Calvin, is shown in Fig.B, in which the news report on Calvin's in vitro demonstration of reaction (D), Chem. & Eng. News (July 4, 1955), is compared with Calvin's original papers on the Berkeley group's finding of the reaction (L), Wilson, A.T. and Calvin, M. (1955) J. Am. Chem. Soc. 77, 5948-5957, providing experimental proof of Calvin, M. and Massini, P. (1952) Experientia 8, 445-484, in which Calvin first proposed that photosynthetic carbon fixation is a light reaction. Calvin cycle, dark reactions in sunlight The title of this post, "Francis K. Fong Discovered the Calvin cycle," is not a mistake. Fong, not Melvin Calvin, discovered the Calvin cycle, or the dark photosynthetic reactions. The Calvin cycle was the result of a work of fiction on which Calvin based his representation of "the photosynthetic carbon cycle" in his Nobel Lecture at Fig.18, the reaction (D). Although Fig.18 was rejected by Calvin in the same Nobel Lecture, at Fig.20, in favor of the Berkeley group's finding of the reductive carboxylation reaction, reaction (L), it was reaction (D) that became adopted by the community as tried and true. This reaction (D) became known as the Calvin cycle, as reproduced in Fig.1 below. Fig.1. Calvin's representation in his Nobel Lecture of the "photosynthetic carbon cycle" based on a work of fiction. Fong discovers the Calvin cycle More than half a century ago, during 1958-59, Fong uncovered the photosynthetic dark reactions. He discovered that Mother Nature did plant photosynthesis in the light in the dark. He developed a consuming interest in unraveling this curious phenomenon. At that time, he studied under Sir Hugh Taylor as an undergraduate chemistry major at Princeton University. Fig.2. Francis K. Fong aged 20, left, in search of an undergraduate thesis topic in 1958-59, discovered the Calvin cycle attributed to Nobel Laureate Melvin Calvin. For his undergraduate thesis, Fong pored over the chemical literature for a topic. He was captured by the possibilities of the Centenary Lecture delivered on October 28, 1955 by Melvin Calvin before the Chemical Society (London). (See banner image atop the Calvin Cycle Website.) The lecture was entitled "The Photosynthetic Carbon Cycle," nature's secret for taking up (fixing) carbon dioxide and, then, reducing it to organic matter with water, energized by stored energy from the sun - all of this in the dark without the help of sunlight. Photosynthesis, the combination of H2O and CO2 to yield sugar and molecular oxygen, is arguably the most important reaction in the study of chemistry. It provides the sustenance of all life on earth; but it had remained an unsolved mystery up to and until 1955, when Calvin by his lecture promised to the world that mankind penetrated this mystery. In 1958, when he first read, and then pursued, Calvin's remarkable accomplishment, Fong was 20, a junior. He was unprepared for the shocking finding, as he delved into Calvin's unraveling of nature's great mystery. What Calvin called the photosynthetic cycle had apparently originated from a single news story in 1955, that Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (LRL) [Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL)] workers "performed,"(a) "by a separate collection of soluble chemicals,"(b) all of the reaction steps in the dark photosynthetic carbon reduction cycle: (a) Chem. & Eng. News. 33, 2809 (July 4, 1955). (b) Calvin, M. (1956) J. Chem. Soc., 1956, 1895-1915. Article (b) was Calvin’s speech before the Chemical Society based on the newspaper article (a), which was released by Purdue after Wilson and Calvin (1955) reported Berkeley workers' findings to the contrary. Fong continued searching for proof of Calvin's claims, but no such proof existed. But for the news item published in the July 1955 issue of Chem. & Eng. News, all Calvin's own original papers would seem to contradict his proclamations. Carbon reduction in photosynthesis was neither dark nor cyclic! Unschooled in how scientific research was processed through the media to reach the public, Fong attributed his curious finding to his lack of knowledge as to how important research was reported. There exists a strange fascination in us to wantnature to operate in an unfathomable, mysterious way. Mother Nature does chlorophyll photosynthesis in sunlight in the dark! Or is it possible that Mother Nature has nothing to do with it? In the 1940's, C.B. van Niel of Stanford University and Berkeley's Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben had pioneered the concept of reduction in green plants as a dark reaction, in a process akin to bacterial (non- chlorophyllous) systems. Dark chlorophyll photosynthesis was born, summarily dismissing the century-old photochemical theory of carbon reduction in photosynthesis by Adolf von Baeyer. Fong was unable to rationalize why Calvin would publish his finding of the photoreductive path of carbon in plant photosynthesis in reputable journals and, then, rely on a newspaper story to claim his dark cyclic reaction. As a result, Fong chose another subject, also one of topical interest in the late 1950's, for his senior thesis. He entitled his thesis, "The ABC of Nuclear Fusion." In the spring of 1959, Fong won the Sayre Fellowship for a graduating senior to enter Princeton's graduate program in chemistry. He joined Paul von Schleyer's group to do research in physical organic chemistry. Photosynthesis involves complex organic reactions; to understand why photosynthetic carbon reduction was a dark cyclic reaction, he would first need to master the principles of physical organic chemistry. Two things happened during Fong's second year in graduate school that would prove eventful in shaping his education as a physical chemist. Early in 1961, on a snowy day, he climbed a window into Clio Hall, Princeton's music department, to do a "rehearsal practice" of Beethoven's C-Minor Third Piano Concerto. Challenged by the forte solo part following the third orchestral tutti passage of the Alegro con brio First Movement, he forgot an aldo condensation experiment he left unattended in Schleyer's lab. When he returned, Schleyer was waiting. Above him were Fong's exploded condensation products splattered onto the the 20-foot high ceiling of Frick Hall. A music lover himself, Schleyer the thesis advisor said something direct but true, sufficiently stern in the delivery that Fong got the message to change his Ph.D. thesis advisor to study under Charles P. Smyth. He completed his dissertation on the dielectric relaxation of polar molecules in organic solvents. Schleyer and Fong remain on the best of terms through the years, but the switch was instrumental in Fong's later work on photosynthesis research using the quantum statistical mechanical approach to molecular relaxation. Not long after the exploded experiment, also in 1961, Calvin won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the dark reaction cycle in photosynthesis. There was euphoria in the air. By Calvin's Nobel Prize, there would be factories the world over for manufacturing all kinds of organic compounds from the free, inexhaustible sources: sunlight, water from the oceans and carbon dioxide in the air. Calvin by his lecture did change the world in a most profound manner, including this author's - but not in the way he promised by his lecture in October of 1955. Calvin and Fong - lives in parallel The development of the Calvin cycle bore an eerie parallel to Fong's school days and professional life long before 1961, when Calvin received the Nobel Prize and Fong exploded his aldo condensation. Before Fong knew the meaning of the word, "chemistry," through the 1940's, Calvin, James Bassham and Andrew Benson proposed that photosynthesis was a dark reaction cycle. See, e.g., Wikipedia's one and only reference to the original literature for its Calvin cycle page: Bassham J, Benson A, Calvin M (1950). "The path of carbon in photosynthesis." J Biol Chem 185 (2): 781– 7. PMID 14774424.
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