Irwin Fridovich

Who is Irwin Fridovich?

Irwin Fridovich is an American biochemist who, together with his graduate student Joe M. McCord, discovered the enzymatic activity of superoxide dismutase. He is currently Professor emeritus of Biochemistry at Duke University. Superoxide dismutase is a central enzyme for the detoxification of harmful oxygen free radicals formed by the metabolism of organisms. Following the functional identification of the cytoplasmic Cu,Zn SOD, Fridovich also discovered mitochondrial MnSOD, now known to be an essential mammalian protein, and spent the rest of his career studying the biochemical mechanisms of SOD and of biological superoxide toxicity, using bacteria as model systems.