Walter Jennings Jones

Walter Jennings Jones (28 April 1865 – 28 February 1935) was an American biochemist and a professor at Johns Hopkins University who was among the early investigators of the composition of the nucleic acids including the presence of nucleotides, sugar and phosphate. He also noted the presence of thermostable enzymes that could break the nucleic acids by breaking the inter-nucleotide bonds. He published his results in the 1920 book Nucleic Acids: Their Chemical Properties and Physiological Conduct.

Carte-de-visite, 1892

Jones was born in Baltimore to Levin and Zeanette Jane Bohen, both devout Methodists. His middle name was after a physician friend of the family and he rarely used it. He was educated at local schools, and joined the City College, Baltimore in 1879. He joined Johns Hopkins in 1884 and received his BA in 1888 with studies in chemistry, and minors in mineralogy and geology. He received a PhD in 1891, studying under Ira Remsen. He worked as an acting professor of natural science at Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio. The next year he worked in Purdue University but moved back to Baltimore and in 1896 he became an assistant in physiological chemistry under John J. Abel at Johns Hopkins. In 1899 he visited Germany and was inspired by the work of Albrecht Kossel which led to a focus on the study of nucleic acids.[1] Among the works that Jones did was to come to the conclusion that some nucleic acids had a five carbon sugar (in yeast) and that animals they had a six carbon sugar. This was a period when the contemporary model of tetranucleotides was proposed by Jones' rival P.A. Levene.[2] Another discovery was thermostable enzymes capable of breaking the inter-nucleotide bonds, now known to be ribonuclease A.[3] He became a full professor in 1908 when the Department of Physiological Chemistry was established.[4][5]

Jones married Grace Crary Clarke in 1891 and they had one daughter.[4]