As noted elsewhere (Briggs et al. 1990), our (Blinks’s and my) earlier action spectrum studies of marine algae along with Blinks’s new measurements on chromatic transients gave
support to the idea of Robert Emerson that accessory pigments and chlorophyll are organized in special ways and that photosynthesis functions with two photosystems. Raw data for some of the results on chromatic transients (Capmatinib purchase Blinks 1960a, b, c; Selleck GDC-941 Yocum and Blinks 1958) had already been shared with me by Blinks at the time I presented a review of accessory pigment function (Haxo 1960) at the ‘First Annual Symposium on Comparative Biology of the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute” in 1959. There I described Fork’s paired wavelength studies in Porphyra perforata showing that photosynthesis could be enhanced at both blue and red ends of the spectrum by simultaneously exciting mid spectrum absorption by the accessory biliprotein
(see Haxo 1960, p. 356). (From Haxo 2008, unpublished manuscript.) The single most cited (293 times) of Blinks’s many photosynthesis papers is that by Haxo and Blinks (1950) on red algae, which has been recognized by a wide variety of photosynthesis investigators in more than 36 reviews on photosynthesis and more than 200 published articles (not including the many textbooks on plant physiology that quote him) (ISI Web of Knowledge). A series of important evaluations of this work and that of I-BET-762 price Blinks in photosynthesis are given below. In summary, Blinks’s first photosynthesis experiments included comparisons
of many phyla of marine algae, as well as freshwater species, which he wisely knew had an array of chlorophyll as well as accessory pigment systems. Action potentials, monochromatic light in red, green, and blue region of the spectrum, and other techniques such as oxygen electrodes, which he had used since 1938 (Blinks and Skow 1938a, b) were of importance in the early experiments. Many of these investigations were done singly by Blinks himself. Other studies were Glutamate dehydrogenase done with colleagues such as F.T. Haxo, R.L. Airth, R.K. Skow, C.M. Lewis, C.M. Chambers, and C.S. Yocum (Blinks and Skow 1938a, b; Haxo and Blinks 1946, 1950; Blinks 1928, 1954a, b, 1957, 1959, 1960a, b, c; Airth and Blinks 1957, Blinks and Chambers 1958; Yocum and Blinks 1950, 1954, 1958). This early pioneering work was important because it led on to an understanding of the role of chlorophyll a and phycobiliproteins in providing light energy to two separate light reactions, which are now known as photosystem I and photosystem II. This work was especially significant for cyanobacteria and red algae. Comments by a series of leading photosynthesis investigators of Blinks’s contributions to photosynthesis We quote next a series of evaluations of Blinks’s photosynthesis work by leading scientists in photosynthesis.