Original sample of glutamine, made by A. Chibnall, Imperial College, London, 1932
This image is released under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Licence
License this image for commercial use at Science and Society Picture Library
License
Science Museum Group
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum
Original sample of glutamine isolated from a protein (gliadin), made by A. Chibnall, Imperial College, London, 1932
This tube contains a crystalline sample of glutamine, an amino acid that helps to build proteins in the body, and is found in many plants. It is an important molecule that supports plant growth and metabolism. It was extracted from a protein, gliadin, by Biochemists Albert Charles Chibnall (1894 –1988) and his colleagues at the Biochemistry Department, at Imperial College, London.
Their research centred on understanding plant proteins and how plants process nitrogen, a crucial element for their growth and development, and they pioneered the technique of enzymatic digests to study the compound.
