Nobel chemist Paul Boyer dies aged 99

Paul Boyer, who won the chemistry Nobel prize in 1997 for his work on the synthesis of the cellular energy source adenosine triphosphate (ATP), has died aged 99.

In the 1970s Boyer put forward a theory of how the enzyme ATP synthase can turn adenosine diphosphate and inorganic phosphate into molecules of ATP, which are used to store and transport energy within biological cells. His model of how the enzyme’s different subunits work together to create a rotating molecular motor powered by a hydrogen ion gradient was shown to be correct in 1994 when John Walker, with whom Boyer shared the Nobel, determined the structure of ATP synthase using x-ray crystallography.