g., Brody and Brody 1961). In particular, the idea that the reaction center of Photosystem I “P700” is an aggregated form of chlorophyll was emphasized by the two (Brody and Brody 1965). M. Brody and Brody (1962) provided an excellent review of the field of “Light Reactions in Photosynthesis”;
this remains an important educational contribution. The two also initiated studies on fluorescence properties of Euglena during chlorophyll formation (Brody et al. 1965); and studied the effects of linolenic acid, among many things, on the two photosystems (Brody 1970; Brody et al. 1970). After almost a decade, the mechanism of linolenic acid inhibition on photosynthetic electron transport was rediscovered and subsequently, exploited to study partial reactions of the photosystems (see e.g., Golbeck et al. 1980; Warden and Csatorday 1987). Contributions at New York University From 1969 to 1992, Steve Brody’s research efforts NSC 683864 took a new perspective by exploring the interactions of chlorophyll monolayers and various photosynthetic electron donors and acceptors in artificial membrane systems, and also extended this approach to retinals
and rhodopsin. Steve continued to design prototype biophysical instruments to spectrally characterize chlorophyll and proteins in monolayers. REH As a doctoral candidate at New York University (NYU), I was fortunate to have Steve as my professor and mentor (1974–1977). He was always available for discussion and dealt with all issues in an even, soft-toned manner. He created the curricula and this website taught two excellent upper-level graduate courses, “Photobiology” and “Instrumentation
in Biology”. Students enrolled in the later course scurried about his blacked-out laboratory, set atop the roof of NYU’s Main Building, learning to use these instruments, helping to modify them, and acquiring data. My doctoral studies focused on direct spectral measurements of pure chlorophyll monolayers at a nitrogen–water interface in the presence and absence of redox compounds. Increasing surface tension gave rise to longer wavelength species. We concluded that in the monolayer, compression gives rise to various chlorophyll aggregated species (Hirsch and Brody 1979). The amount and specific chlorophyll species could be further induced by compression in the presence of LY294002 molecular weight reducing or oxidizing agents, with implications Thiamine-diphosphate kinase of chlorophyll orientation and complexation (Hirsch and Brody 1978, 1979, 1980). After graduating in 1977, I began a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Division of Hematology, Department of Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. A few days a week, I returned to Steve’s lab at NYU to collaborate, using the instrument that provided data for my doctoral dissertation. Steve collaborated with me, and my Einstein colleagues, on a project comparing the properties of monolayers of sickle cell hemoglobin (HbS) and normal hemoglobin at an air–water interface.