John E. Walker quotes:

In 1960, I went to St. Catherine's College, Oxford, and received the B.A. degree in Chemistry in 1964.

My father was a stone mason, and a talented amateur pianist and vocalist.

In 1995, I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

I was a keen sportsman, and became school captain in soccer and cricket.

Biological energy comes from the sun. Light energy harvested by photosynthesis in chloroplasts and phototropic bacteria becomes stored in carbohydrates and fats. This stored energy can be released by oxidative metabolism in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and used as fuel for other biological processes.

These studies resulted eventually in a complete sequence analysis of the complex from several species, and in the atomic resolution structure of the F catalytic domain of the enzyme from bovine mitochondria, giving new insights into how ATP is made in the biological world.