Edmond H. Fischer was the joint recipient with his longtime associate, Edwin Krebs, of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1992 for discoveries dealing with reversible protein phosphorylation as a biological regulatory mechanism. Responsible for a wide range of basic processes, including cell growth and differentiation, regulation of genes, and muscle contraction, protein phosphorylation is now the subject of one in every twenty papers published in biology journals. Application of Fischer and Krebs's work to medicine has elucidated mechanisms of diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and has yielded drugs that inhibit the body's rejection of transplanted organs. The recognition accorded Fischer and Krebs, who began a collaboration at the University of Washington in Seattle in the early 1950s, was hailed within the scientific community as long overdue.

Edmond H. Fischer was born in Shanghai, China. His father, Oscar Fischer, had come to China from Vienna, Austria...