Horace Albert Barker; Pioneered Metabolism Study

Horace Albert Barker, 93, UC Berkeley biochemist, who made significant studies in the function of vitamin B-12. Internationally respected, Barker in 1944 helped pioneer the use of isotopic tracers to synthesize sugar, sharing the Sugar Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences. In the 1950s, he moved into vitamin B-12 coenzyme chemistry and later into bacterial metabolism, fatty acid oxidation and carbohydrate transformations. Barker’s studies formed the basic structure for current understanding of metabolism of food and its role in health. Born in Oakland and reared in Palo Alto, where he was educated at Stanford, Barker joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1936 and taught for more than 40 years. He earned the Borden Award in Nutrition in 1965 and the National Medal of Science in 1968, and in 1988 a research building was named in his honor on the UC Berkeley campus. On Dec. 24 in Berkeley.