William Howard Stein
William Howard Stein was an American biochemist.Stein was born and died in New York City. He was the son of a Jewish couple, Beatrice Cecilla, a children's rights activist, and Fred Michael Stein, a banker. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy, Harvard University and Columbia University. He was a subsequently a researcher under Max Bergmann at Rockefeller University, where much of his most important work was done.
Stein won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1972 with Christian Boehmer Anfinsen and Stanford Moore, for their work on ribonuclease and for their contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the ribonuclease molecule.
In 1958 he and Stanford Moore developed the first automated amino acid analyzer, which facilitated the determination of protein sequences. Stein remained at Rockefeller for his entire career, and held visiting professorships at Washington University at St. Louis, Haverford College, the University of Chicago and Harvard University.
