Emil L. Smith

Emil Smith begins this interview by discussing his family background and childhood in New York City. During high school, he learned to play the saxophone and later earned money for college by playing concerts on weekends and holidays. At Columbia University he studied biology under Selig Hecht. In 1938, he received a Guggenheim fellowship to Cambridge University where he worked in David Keilin's laboratory. The outbreak of World War II in Europe forced Smith to return to the U.S. where he worked at Yale, the Rockefeller Institute, and later, E. R. Squibb & Sons. Smith accepted a position at the University of Utah and was a faculty member in both the departments of biochemistry and medicine. He was later Chairman of Biological Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine. Smith concludes the first interview by describing his activities after retirement.

In the second interview, Smith describes his research interests, which have included work with peptidases, immunoglobulins, cytochromes, subtilisin, histones, and glutamate dehydrogenases. Smith discusses his involvement with the International Union of Biochemists and American Chemical Society. He concludes this interview with a recollection of his meeting with Chou En-lai concerning scientific exchange between the United States and China.

Columbia University

1931 - 1934 Teaching assistant, Zoology Department

Columbia University

1934 - 1936 Teaching assistant, Biophysics

Columbia University

1936 - 1938 Instructor, Biophysics

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow

1938 - 1939 Molteno Institute, Cambridge University (with David Keilin)

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow

1939 - 1940 Yale University and the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (with Hubert B. Vickery)

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow

1940 - 1942 Fellow, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (with Max Bergmann)

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow

1942 - 1946 Senior Biochemist and Biophysicist, E. R. Squibb and Sons

University of Utah, College of Medicine

1946 - 1950 Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Associate Professor of Medicine

University of Utah, College of Medicine

1950 - 1963 Professor of Biochemistry, Research Professor of Medicine, and Head of the Laboratory for the Study of Hereditary and Metabolic Disorders, Biochemical Section

University of Utah, College of Medicine

1958 - 1959 Acting Chairman, Department of Biochemistry

University of California, Los Angeles

1963 - 1979 Professor and Chairman, School of Medicine, Department of Biological Chemistry

University of California, Los Angeles

1979 Professor Emeritus

James J. Bohning

James J. Bohning is professor emeritus of chemistry at Wilkes University, where he was a faculty member from 1959 to 1990. He served there as chemistry department chair from 1970 to 1986 and environmental science department chair from 1987 to 1990. Bohning was chair of the American Chemical Society’s Division of the History of Chemistry in 1986; he received the division’s Outstanding Paper Award in 1989 and has presented more than forty papers at national meetings of the society. Bohning was on the advisory committee of the society’s National Historic Chemical Landmarks Program from its inception in 1992 through 2001 and is currently a consultant to the committee. He developed the oral history program of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and he was the foundation’s director of oral history from 1990 to 1995. From 1995 to 1998, Bohning was a science writer for the News Service group of the American Chemical Society. He is currently a visiting research scientist and CESAR Fellow at Lehigh University. In May 2005, he received the Joseph Priestley Service Award from the Susquehanna Valley Section of the American Chemical Society.