Hammes conducted postdoctoral research with Manfred Eigen at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical ChemistryinGöttingen, Germany. He then secured a faculty position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before moving to Cornell University in 1965, where he was professor and chair of the department of chemistry. At Cornell University, he was the Horace White Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, as well the director and co-founder of the Cornell University Biotechnology Program. He spent some time at the University of California, Santa Barbara as vice-chancellor for academic affairs, and then joined the biochemistry faculty at Duke University in 1991.[1] He served as vice chancellor of academic affairs at the Duke University Medical Center from 1991 through 1998.[2][3]
Dr. Hammes is a world leader in the field of enzyme mechanisms and regulation, starting with work with Eigen on the temperature-jump technique[6][7] and with Robert Alberty on relaxation spectra.[8] He studied the kinetic behavior of various enzymes, including glutamate-aspartate transaminase,[9][10] hexokinase,[11][12][13] and ribonuclease.[14] He developed new methodologies that allowed a better understanding of enzyme catalysis,[15] including fast reaction techniques,[6][7] fluorescence spectroscopy, and single molecule microscopy.[16][17] He was also one of the first to develop fluorescence energy transfer (FRET) as a technology to study distances between and within proteins.[17] His work revolutionized the understanding of conformational changes and multiple intermediates in enzyme catalysis. Dr. Hammes has published more than 250 scientific articles.
^ abEigen, Manfred; Hammes, Gordon G. (1960). "Kinetic Studies of ADP Reactions with the Temperature Jump Method". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 82 (22): 5951–5952. doi:10.1021/ja01507a041.
^ abEigen, Manfred; Hammes, Gordon G. (1961). "Kinetic Studies of ADP Reactions with the Temperature Jump Method—Corrections". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 83 (12): 2786. doi:10.1021/ja01473a056.
^Hammes, Gordon G.; Alberty, Robert A. (1960). "The Relaxation Spectra of Simple Enzymatic Mechanisms". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 82 (7): 1564–1569. doi:10.1021/ja01492a012.
^Hammes, Gordon G.; Fasella, Paolo. (1962). "A Kinetic Study of Glutamic-Aspartic Transaminase". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 84 (24): 4644–4650. doi:10.1021/ja00883a006.
^Fasella, Paolo; Giartosio, Anna; Hammes, Gordon G. (1966). "The Interaction of Aspartate Aminotransferase with α-Methylaspartic Acid". Biochemistry. 5 (1): 197–202. doi:10.1021/bi00865a026. PMID5938937.
^Hammes, Gordon G.; Kochavi, Daniel. (1962). "Studies of the Enzyme Hexokinase. I. Steady State Kinetics at pH 8". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 84 (11): 2069–2073. doi:10.1021/ja00870a012.
^Hammes, Gordon G.; Kochavi, Daniel. (1962). "Studies of the Enzyme Hexokinase. II. Kinetic Inhibition by Products". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 84 (11): 2073–2076. doi:10.1021/ja00870a013.
^Hammes, Gordon G.; Kochavi, Daniel. (1962). "Studies of the Enzyme Hexokinase. III. The Role of the Metal Ion". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 84 (11): 2076–2079. doi:10.1021/ja00870a014.
^Cathou, Renata E.; Hammes, Gordon G. (1964). "Relaxation Spectra of Ribonuclease". Berichte der Bunsengesellschaft für Physikalische Chemie. 68 (8–9): 759–760. doi:10.1002/bbpc.19640680818.
^Fasella, Paolo; Hammes, Gordon G.; Schimmel, Paul R. (1965). "A Sephadex dialysis method of determining small molecule-macromolecule binding constants". Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Nucleic Acids and Protein Synthesis. 103 (4): 708–710. doi:10.1016/0005-2787(65)90094-8. PMID5859855.
^ abAntikainen, Nina M.; Smiley, R. Derike; Benkovic, Stephen J.; Hammes, Gordon G. (2005). "Conformation Coupled Enzyme Catalysis: Single-Molecule and Transient Kinetics Investigation of Dihydrofolate Reductase". Biochemistry. 44 (51): 16835–16843. doi:10.1021/bi051378i. PMID16363797.
^Hammes, Gordon G. (2000). Thermodynamics and Kinetics for the Biological Sciences. New York: Wiley-Interscience. ISBN0-471-37491-1.
^Hammes, Gordon G. (2005). Spectroscopy for the Biological Sciences. ISBN978-0471713449.
^Hammes, Gordon G.; Hammes-Schiffer, Sharon (2015). Physical Chemistry for the Biological Sciences. ISBN978-1118859001.
