The interview is followed by an Epilogue that describes previously undisclosed details surrounding a manuscript Benson completed just before leaving Berkeley for Penn State. The video and the transcript have been posted on You Tube (http://​youtu.​be/​GfQQJ2vR_​xE). BEGINNING OF

VIDEO Buchanan: I’m at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, with Andrew Benson, where he is an emeritus professor of biology. We are in an office Dr. Benson has occupied since he arrived at Scripps in 1962. In today’s interview, Andy, I would like to discuss your career, focusing on research that led to the discovery of the Calvin–Benson cycle in photosynthesis, a pathway essential to the growth of all plants. This work was done in collaboration with the late Melvin Calvin in the Chemistry Department at Berkeley.

Andy, for today’s purposes, we will start early in your life with your arrival as a freshman at Berkeley. Andy, you RGFP966 cost arrived in Berkeley in 1935 as a young chemistry major. Why did chemistry interest you?   Benson: Because in high school I had an excellent—a very interesting chemistry teacher. He had been on the football team of Stanford University. And he was a big guy. And everyone was afraid of him. (laughs). But he had—did some tricks that really fooled everybody.   Student days see more Buchanan: So that was one of the attractions. Well, after you arrived in Berkeley, your father took you to meet Wendell Latimer, a well-known chemist who was chairman of the Chemistry Department. What were your first impressions of the campus after you arrived as a youth, fresh from central California?   Benson: Well, it was full of people (laughs) and they all knew where they were going.   Buchanan: (laughs)

  Benson: And I was only going to hopefully find the Chemistry Department.   Buchanan: Well, after completing your Bachelor’s degree, you continued as a chemistry graduate student at Cal Tech, where you worked with Carl Niemann, one of the nation’s most distinguished chemists. What was Professor Niemann’s specialty?   Benson: He was a specialist in carbohydrate chemistry, anything involving sugar molecules and plastics and everything. He—his lectures, for over three years, were brilliant. And he was a well known—chairman of the chemistry—chemists of the National Academy of Sciences.   As a young Ph.D. in Berkeley Buchanan: This training provided excellent preparation for the research you were to carry out following your return to Berkeley as a young Ph.D. in 1942. At that time, there was great activity in chemistry at Berkeley. What was the Chemistry Department like in 1942?   Benson: I was in charge of several sections of the teaching groups in chemistry.   Buchanan: So this was your role as a faculty member.   Benson: Yeah. And the students in those two groups that I managed were absolutely at the top of the students, as far as their test scores went.