William Allen Eaton MD, PhD

William A. Eaton is an NIH Distinguished Investigator in NIDDK, Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Eaton is a biophysical scientist, best known for his physical chemistry investigations of sickle cell hemoglobin polymerization, protein folding, and hemoglobin allostery. His work on sickle cell disease advanced our understanding of molecular pathogenesis and improved treatment; his introduction of photochemical triggering with nanosecond laser pulses, laser temperature jump, and single-molecule spectroscopy transformed kinetic studies of protein folding; his single-crystal optical absorption and laser photolysis experiments led to an extension of the allosteric model of Monod, Wyman, and Changeux to include tertiary conformations and increase our understanding of how hemoglobin functions.

Dr. Eaton was born and educated in Philadelphia, earning a B.A. degree in Chemistry in 1959, an M.D. degree in 1964, and a Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biology in 1967, all at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1968, he moved to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, to fulfill his military service obligation as a Medical Officer in the US Public Health Service. Since 1986 he has served as Chief of the Laboratory of Chemical Physics, the principal laboratory at NIH carrying out research in the biophysical sciences.