John E. Walker was awarded a share of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on the enzyme ATP synthase. That enzyme is responsible for the biologically critical molecule known as adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that provides the energy needed to drive a host of biochemical reactions in cells. Walker's research dovetailed with similar work carried out by the second 1997 Nobel Laureate, Paul Boyer, who devised a theory that explained the process by which the ATP synthase enzyme operates. Walker has been employed at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge for more than two decades.

Walker was born on January 7, 1941, in Halifax, England. He attended the Rastrick Grammar School in Brighouse, Yorkshire, and then enrolled at St. Catherine's College, Oxford, in 1960. He was awarded his B.A. Degree in Chemistry by St. Catherine's in 1964. Walker then spent four years as a research...