Adrian John Brown

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}

{{Infobox scientist

|birth_date = {{birth date|1852|04|27|df=yes}}

|birth_place = Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England

|death_date = {{death date and age|1919|07|02|1852|04|27|df=yes}}

|education = Royal College of Science, London

|fields = Malting and brewing, fermentation, enzyme action

|workplaces = Burton-on-Trent; St Bartholomew's Hospital, London; Mason University College, now University of Birmingham

| known_for = Explaining enzyme action in terms of saturation

|relatives = Horace Tabberer Brown (half-brother)

}}

{{EngvarB|date=August 2019}}

Adrian John Brown, FRS (27 April 1852 – 2 July 1919[http://royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=1&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27Brown%27%29 See Royal Society Record here]) was a British Professor of Malting and Brewing at the University of Birmingham and a pioneer in the study of enzyme kinetics.

File:Mason Science College.png]]

He was born at Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire to Edwin Brown, a bank manager in the town. His elder brother was Horace Tabberer Brown. He attended the local grammar school and then went up to study chemistry at the Royal College of Science in London. He became private assistant to Dr Russell at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School. In 1873 he returned to Burton to work as a chemist in the brewing industry for the next twenty-five years. In 1899{{cite book|chapter=Chairs and Professors of Universities in the United Kingdom|title=Who's Who Year-book for 1908|year=1908|page=132|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3sY0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA132}} he left to become Professor of Brewing and Malting at Mason University College (which became Birmingham University in 1900).{{Cite journal|url=http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayArticleForFree.cfm?doi=CT9222102898&JournalCode=CT|doi = 10.1039/CT9222102898|title = Obituary notices: James Robert Appleyard, 1870–1921; Adrian Brown, 1852–1919; William Gowland, 1842–1922; Prof. Philippe A. Guye, 1862–1922; William Kellner, 1839–1922; George William Mac Donald; Lionel William Stansell, 1861–1922|year = 1922|last1 = Knecht|first1 = E.|last2 = Thorpe|first2 = T. E.|last3 = Trigger|first3 = O.|last4 = Robertson|first4 = R.|journal = J. Chem. Soc. Trans.|volume = 121|pages = 2898–2916}}

He studied the rate of fermentation of sucrose by yeast and suggested in 1892 that a substance in the yeast might be responsible for speeding up the reaction.[http://bip.cnrs-mrs.fr/bip10/buchner.htm New Beer in an Old Bottle: Eduard Buchner and the Growth of Biochemical Knowledge] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101213084345/http://bip.cnrs-mrs.fr/bip10/buchner.htm |date=13 December 2010 }}, edited by Athel Cornish-Bowden and published by Universitat de València (1997) {{ISBN|84-370-3328-4}}, A history of early enzymology. This was the first time enzymes were suggested as separate entities from organisms and talked about in chemical terms. He later studied the enzyme responsible and made the striking suggestion that the kinetics he observed were the result of an enzyme–substrate complex being formed during the reaction,A. J. Brown A J: Enzyme action, J. Chem. Soc. 81 (1902) 373–388 a concept that has formed the basis of all later work on enzyme kinetics.{{cite journal |author=Harden A |title=Obituary Notice: Adrian John Brown |journal=Biochem. J. |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=1–3 |date=1 February 1920|doi=10.1042/bj0140001 |pmid=16742879 |pmc=1258887 }} Similar ideas had been put earlier by German chemist and Nobel laureate Hermann Emil Fischer by comparing substrate and enzyme with a key and a lock.