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Melvin Calvin ( April 8, 1911 - January 8, 1997) was a chemist most famed for discovering the Calvin cycle (along with Adam Benson ), for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the son of Russian immigrants, Calvin earned his Bachelor of Science from the Michigan College of Mining and Technology in 1931 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1935. He then spent the next four years doing postdoctoral work at the University of Manchester. He married Genevieve Jemtegaard in 1942, and they had three children, two daughters and a son.

Calvin joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley as an instructor in 1937 and was promoted to Professor of Chemistry in 1947. In 1963 he was given the additional title of Professor of Molecular Biology. He was founder and Director of the Laboratory of Chemical Biodynamics and simultaneously Associate Director of Berkeley Radiation Laboratory, where he conducted much of his research until his retirement in 1980.

Using the carbon-14Carbon-14 is the radioactive isotope of carbon discovered February 27, 1940, by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben. Its presence in organic materials is used in radiocarbon dating. The half-life of carbon-14 is 5730 years. It decays into nitrogen-14 through beta- isotope as a tracer, Calvin and his team mapped the complete route that carbon travels through a plant during photosynthesisPhotosynthesis is a biochemical process in which plants, green algae, and some bacteria use the energy of light to combine water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and energy. It nourishes nearly all living things directly or indirectly, making it vital to li, starting from its absorption as atmospheric carbon dioxide to its conversion into carbohydrates and other organic compounds. In doing so, the Calvin group showed that sunlight acts on the chlorophyllChlorophyll is the green photosynthetic pigment present in chloroplasts, which provides the energy necessary for photosynthesis. The intense green color of chlorophyll is due to its strong absorbence in the red and blue regions of the electromagnetic spec in a plant to fuel the manufacturing of organic compounds, rather than on carbon dioxideCarbon dioxide is an atmospheric gas composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. One of the best known of chemical compounds, it is frequently called by its formula: :CO (pronunciation: "see oh two") Carbon dioxide results from the combustion of organic as was previously believed. In his final years of active research, he studied the use of oil-producing plants as renewable sources of energy. He also spent many years testing the chemical evolution of life and wrote a book on the subject that was published in 1969. Calvin also researched organic geochemistryOrganic geochemistry is the study of the impacts and processes that organisms, and once-living organisms have on the earth. Geochemistry., chemical carcinogenesis and analysis of moon rock s.

He served on the Science Advisory Committee under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and the Advisory Group to the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the Executive Office of the President. He was elected to the National Academy of SciencesThe National Academy of Sciences (NAS in the United States is a government-established corporation supporting scientific research. Its official journal is the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences''. As its name suggests, it is the national acad, with which he was chairman of the Committee on Science and Public Policy, the Royal Society of London, the Japan Academy , and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.

His awards included the National Medal of Science, which he received in 1989, the Priestley Medal from the American Chemical Society, the Davy Medal from the Royal Society of London, and the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Chemists .