The "Stanley Cup of Science" goes to one of Canada's top biochemists
Written By: Unknown
2000-09-01
Dr. Brian Sykes' election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society is recognized around the world as a sign of the highest regard in scienceBrian Sykes likes to joke that his University hockey teammates ask him to ride the bench during the last crucial minutes of the game. Maybe he 's not the Wayne Gretzky of the old timers 'league, but in the world of biochemistry, Sykes never rides the bench. In fact, Dr. Sykes was just awarded the "Stanley Cup of Science."
This summer, Dr. Sykes was elected a Fellow to the Royal Society (London). He joins a select group from the University of Alberta; he joins three others who have been elected to the Royal Society of London: physicist Werner Israel (1986), chemist Raymond Lemieux (1967) and biochemist Michael James (1989). Election to the Fellowship of the Royal Society is recognized around the world as a sign of the highest regard in science.
Dr.Sykes, Chair of the Department of Biochemistry, has made important contributions in nuclear magnetic resonance studies of biological systems. He pioneered several nuclear magnetic resonance techniques that are currently used to investigate proteins. He has been a leader in analyzing protein structure and dynamics, in particular the regulation of muscular contraction mediated by calcium ions. His work has provided a molecular basis for mechanisms through which the binding of ligands to proteins and conformational changes are coupled.
More recently, Dr. Sykes was instrumental in the establishment of a state-of-the-art nuclear magnetic resonance facility, complete with an 800 MHz spectrometer, here at the University of Alberta. The National High Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Centre, directed by Dr. Sykes, is now being used by researchers from a diversity of disciplines across the country to conjure up three dimensional images of molecules. Its creation has firmly established the U of A as one of the continent 's hotbeds of NMR research.
Dr. Sykes 'contributions to NMR research and the education of the next generation of researchers are legendary. There isn 't a biochemistry department in the country that doesn 't have someone in it touched by Brian 's work, says Dean of the Faculty, Dr. Lorne Tyrrell. Dr. Sykes has been a mentor to many students and postdoctoral fellows, both in the early 1970s at Harvard University and subsequently at the University of Alberta.
One of those former students is Dr. Lana Lee, now a biochemistry professor at the University of Windsor. Dr. Sykes hired the young third-year undergraduate as a summer research assistant at Harvard. Later she joined him in Alberta as his first graduate student. "I am proud of my successful graduate career, and indebted to Brian for his ability to teach me about research, about science, about life in the lab, and about life outside the lab. Outside my immediate family members, he has had the greatest impact and influence on my life, "says Dr. Lee, who flew to London this July to attend the induction ceremony.
It 's people like Dr. Sykes who enable the U of A to fulfil its vision, says Dr. Roger Smith, Vice-President (Research). Undergraduates, for example, can be confident that they will receive as good an education in biochemistry as anywhere in the world. And could the U of A attract the calibre of graduate students in the field without people like Dr. Sykes on staff? he asks. Not likely, says the Vice-President. Dr. Sykes has also been instrumental in the recruitment of bright young staff, the next generation, says Dr. Smith. And facilities such as NANUC logically happen here as a consequence of having good people on staff, he says.
Dr. Sykes '(BSc '65) roots are deep in U of A soil. As an undergraduate, he learned at the foot of several chemistry department giants …people like Harry Gunning who encouraged bright undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies. Dr. Sykes graduated with the Lieutenant Governors 'Gold Medal in Science and was then awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in 1965-66. He went on to earn his PhD in physical chemistry in 1969 at Stanford University.
Since then, Dr. Sykes, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, has earned many of the University 's and Canada 's top science awards, including the Ayerst Award from the Canadian Biochemical Society (1982), the Steacie Prize from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (1982), the U of A 's J Gordin Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research (1992) and the Gerhard Herzberg Award from the Spectroscopy Society of Canada (1998).
This article originally appeared in Faculty of Medicine News