Philip Handler
Past President
Biomedical Sciences
ASBMB
United States of America
Biography
Philip Handler was born in New York City. He received his bachelor's degree from the College of the City of New York and his Ph.D. in 1939 from the University of Illinois, studying with Herbert E. Carter. At Illinois, Handler developed an interest in nutritional research and chose to do his postdoctoral work at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, with William J. Dann, a nutritionist who studied human pellagra and the related disease in dogs, blacktongue. Handler and Dann established a link between the disease and metabolism of nicotinic acid. Handler's work on blacktongue and nicotinic acid was featured in a Journal of Biological Chemistry Classic (1). Handler, along with Jack Preiss, later determined the steps leading to NAD synthesis from nicotinic acid and ATP and showed that the degradation of NAD yields nicotinamide and adenosine diphosphoribose. These pathways are now called the Handler-Preiss cycle.
Research Interest
Handler remained at Duke University for the duration of his research career. He was promoted to associate professor of biochemistry in 1945, chairman of the Department of Biochemistry in 1950, and James B. Duke Professor in 1961. His own research activities encompassed a wide variety of subjects including coenzyme metabolism, renal hypertension, the mechanisms of hormone action, amino acid metabolism, biological oxidations, the mechanism of action of enzymes, and biochemical evolution. While at Duke, Handler also co-authored the textbook Principles of Biochemistry.