Daniel Israel Arnon; UC Berkeley Plant Biologist

Daniel Israel Arnon, 84, a leading plant biologist and professor at UC Berkeley. Arnon changed the basic understanding of photosynthesis, the process that sustains plant life through the conversion of sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into organic compounds and oxygen. He was best known for his discovery of photosynthetic phosphorylation, demonstrating that plants convert the energy of sunlight into biological forms and in doing so liberate oxygen. A native of Warsaw who witnessed the occupation of Poland by the Germans, Arnon came to California to attend college, vowing to devote his life to improving agriculture. He received a doctorate from UC Berkeley and joined the faculty in 1946. He later founded the university’s departments of plant nutrition and cell physiology. Arnon was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and academies in Sweden, France and Germany. He also was a Guggenheim fellow and Fulbright scholar and received the National Medal of Science for breakthroughs in the field of plant nutrition. In Berkeley on Tuesday of heart failure.