John E. Hodge

John Edward Hodge (October 12, 1914 – January 3, 1996) was an American chemist, born in Kansas City, Kansas, best known for establishing the mechanisms in the Maillard reaction pathway.

John Edward Hodge
BornOctober 12 1914
Kansas City, Kansas
DiedJanuary 3 1996
Peoria, Illinois
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Kansas
Known forMaillard reaction pathway
Awards
  • Superior Service Award from U.S. Department of Agriculture (1953)
  • Citation Classic - Science Citation Index (1979 for "Chemistry of browning reactions in model systems."
  • National Academy of Scientists - National Research Council (1977)
  • Who's Who among Black Americans (1980)
  • Honored at NIH Conference on the Maillard Reaction in Aging, Diabetes, and Nutrition (1988)
Scientific career
FieldsChemistry

Early life

Hodge was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1914 to mother Annabelle Hodge and father John Alfred Hodge. He had one younger sister, Dorothy.

His father graduated with a master's in science from Indiana University in 1910[1], and moved to Kansas City where he worked as a science teacher and principal at the African-American Sumner High School, which the young John Hodge attended. Sumner High School was an built in 1905 in response to Kansas City, Kansas being exempted from Kansas state law prohibiting racially segregated schools, and was to be "as well equipped as the existing Kansas City, KS High School."[2] Despite the school board's emphasis on manual training courses, the high school focused on college preparation and academic excellence.

As a child, Hodge was interested in problem solving and construction activities including model airplanes, radio making, and crosswords. He enjoyed card games, checkers, billiards, and chess. He also played piano and trumpet, leading to his lifelong love of jazz music. [3]

Education and career

He gained a Bachelor's of Arts degree in mathematics 1936 and a Master's of Arts degree in organic chemistry from the University of Kansas in 1940[3][4]. During his time at the University of Kansas, Hodge was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa scholastic society and the Pi Mu Epsilon honorary mathematics organization.[4] Alongside his studies for a Master’s, Hodge taught at Western University, Quindaro and worked as a chemist in the Kansas Department of Inspections.[3]

From 1941 he worked at the recently opened USDA Northern Regional Research Center in Peoria, Illinois until his retirement in 1980. Here he worked on corn starch and other carbohydrates, investigating topics such as D-glucose production.[3] Through this work he became interested in the Maillard reaction, a process where sugars react with amino acids. This reaction is involved in the browning of food during cooking but also the loss of sugar during glucose production from corn wet-milling.[3] Hodge focused on pyrolysis reactions in production of different food flavor and aroma compounds produced through the Maillard reaction. He synthesized Amadori compounds, intermediates in the Maillard reaction, to study this process. Hodge discovered that isomaltol, a bakery aroma compound, was produced through a reaction between an Amadori compound reaction and lactose. He also determined the mechanism of maltol production, another baked product flavor and aroma compound. In addition, Hodge, along with collaborator Friedrick Weygand of the University of Munich, investigated the formation of reductones.[3]

He also taught at Western University (Kansas), in 1972 held a visiting professorship at the University of Campinas in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and in 1984–1985 was an adjunct professor at Bradley University.

An article of his: Hodge, J. E. (1953). "Chemistry of browning reactions in model systems." Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 1(15): 928-943 [5] was named a "Citation Classic" by the Science Citation Index in 1979[6]. In it he studied the chemistry of non-enzymatic browning reactions in dehydrated foods, such as the Maillard reaction. The article included a reaction scheme which is known as the "Hodge Scheme": this reaction pathway that he described still holds good today and remains widely cited.[7] It has been suggested it be renamed to the Maillard-Hodge Reaction to reflect his greater contribution than Maillard[8][9].

Personal life

Hodge married Beulah Payne, a chemistry student in St. Louis, in 1939. The two had one son, John Laurent Hodge, before Beulah died in 1942. Hodge later married Justina Louise Williams in 1948.[3] He had another son, Jay Mitchell, and two daughters Judith Ann Dunmore and Justina Louise Mitchell.[3]

Death

Hodge died of cancer on January 3 1996[3], in Peoria, Illinois. Memorial contributions were asked to be made to the North Central Cancer Treatment Group in Rochester, Minnesota[10]. He is buried in the Swan Lake Memory Gardens in Peoria, Illinois.[10]

Awards
  • Phi Beta Kappa scholastic society
  • Pi Mu Epsilon honorary mathematics organization
  • American Chemical Society Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry - chairman
  • American Association of Cereal Chemists
  • Superior Service Award from U.S. Department of Agriculture (1953)
  • Chairman of the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry of the American Chemical Society (1964)
  • Central Illinois Agency for the Aging - Advisory board member (1975)
  • National Academy of Scientists - National Research Council (1977)
  • Citation Classic - Science Citation Index (1979 for "Chemistry of browning reactions in model systems."
  • Who's Who among Black Americans (1980)
  • Honored at NIH Conference on the Maillard Reaction in Aging, Diabetes, and Nutrition (1988)

Legacy

His seminal paper on the mechanisms of the Maillard Reaction, "Dehydrated Foods, Chemistry of Browning Reactions in Model Systems"[11] has been cited over 1300 times, and nearly every paper dealing with the Maillard reaction still cites this ground-breaking work.

gollark: Ah, so it can help you plan *your* ideal authoritarian nation?
gollark: In lessons.
gollark: I had enough free time to probably reread most of the book a few times.
gollark: We spent several months on 1984, a book I quite like, going over it in excruciating detail and doing essays, and it was SO BORING.
gollark: School can make *any* book extremely boring!

References
  1. University, Indiana (1911). Register of the Graduates of Indiana University. Indiana University.
  2. "Sumner High School · Education: The Mightiest Weapon · KU Libraries Exhibits". exhibits.lib.ku.edu. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  3. Advances in Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biochemistry. Academic Press. 1998-08-19. ISBN 978-0-08-056312-1.
  4. Gordon, Jacob U. (2004). The Black Male in White America. Nova Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59033-757-8.
  5. Hodge, J. E. (1953). "Dehydrated Foods, Chemistry of Browning Reactions in Model Systems". Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 1 (15): 928–943. doi:10.1021/jf60015a004.
  6. "This Week's Citation Classic" (PDF). Current Contents. 12. 1979-03-19. Theories of browning reactions, including carbonyl-amino, caramelization, and oxidative types, are integrated in review. A unified mechanism for browning in sugaramine systems is presented, wherein sugaramine condensation, the Amadori rearrangement, sugar dehydration by β-elimination reactions, and reductone formation are shown to be important intermediary reactions leading to the production of brown pigments in cooked and dehydrated foods.
  7. Zhang, Qibin; Ames, Jennifer M.; Smith, Richard D.; Baynes, John W.; Metz, Thomas O. (2009-02-06). "A Perspective on the Maillard Reaction and the Analysis of Protein Glycation by Mass Spectrometry: Probing the Pathogenesis of Chronic Disease". Journal of proteome research. 8 (2): 754–769. doi:10.1021/pr800858h. ISSN 1535-3893. PMC 2642649. PMID 19093874.
  8. Sarah Everts. "The Maillard Reaction Turns 100 | October 1, 2012 Issue - Vol. 90 Issue 40 | Chemical & Engineering News". cen.acs.org. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  9. Eschner, Kat. "Why Food Smells So Good When It's Browning". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2020-06-10.
  10. "John Edward Hodge". Kansas City Star. 7 January 1996.
  11. Hodge, J. E. (1953-10-01). "Dehydrated Foods, Chemistry of Browning Reactions in Model Systems". Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 1 (15): 928–943. doi:10.1021/jf60015a004. ISSN 0021-8561.
  • Biography as part of a student project on notable African Americans at the University of Pittsburgh.
  • Listing in Future Education collection of African American scientists.
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