Patrick H. O'Farrell
{{Short description|Canadian biologist}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Patrick H. O'Farrell
| image = PAT OFarrell ski ~ 2005.jpg
| image_size = 150px
| caption = O'Farrell in 2005
| birth_date =
| birth_place =
| death_date =
| death_place =
| residence =
| citizenship =
| nationality =
| ethnicity =
| field = biology
| work_institutions =
| alma_mater = McGill University
| doctoral_advisor =
| doctoral_students =
| known_for = Two Dimensional Gel Electrophoresis
| author_abbrev_bot =
| author_abbrev_zoo =
| influences =
| influenced =
| prizes =
| religion =
| footnotes =
| signature =
}}
Patrick H. O'Farrell is a molecular biologist who made crucial contribution to the development of 2-dimensional protein electrophoresis{{cite journal
|last=O'Farrell
|first=Patrick H
|date=Dec 2008
|title=The pre-omics era: the early days of two-dimensional gels
|journal=Proteomics
|volume=8
|issue=23–24
|pages=4842–52
|location = Germany| pmid = 19003855
|doi = 10.1002/pmic.200800719
| pmc = 2731566
}} and Drosophila genetics. He is now a professor of Biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)[http://biochemistry2.ucsf.edu/labs/ofarrell/LabMembers.html O'Farrell Lab Web page] and has a h-index of 67.[https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Ygo3n3QAAAAJ&hl=en O'Farrell in Google Scholars]
Education
O'Farrell received his bachelor of science in 1969 from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He then went on to graduate school at the University of Colorado Boulder.{{cn|date= December 2024}}
Major contributions
To optimize the resolution of the Electrophoresis of the proteins, O'Farrell needed to separate the proteins according to independent parameters. Two parameters were used:
- isoelectric focusing in the first dimension
- sodium dodecyl sulfate electrophoresis in the second dimension.
This permitted the simultaneous determination of molecular weight and isoelectric point for the proteins. Because the two parameters are unrelated, it was possible to obtain an almost uniform distribution of protein spots across the two-dimensional gel. Using his technique, O'Farrell was able to resolve 1100 different components from Escherichia coli and predicted his system should be capable of resolving up to 5000 proteins.
References
{{Reflist}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ofarrell, Patrick H.}}
Category:21st-century Canadian biologists
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:McGill University alumni
Category:University of Colorado Boulder alumni
Category:University of California, San Francisco faculty
{{biologist-stub}}