Creative cheating led Stephen B. H. Kent born in 1945 to solve one of the Grand Challenges of
20th Century chemistry: the total synthesis of protein molecules. Twenty-five formative years
in his native New Zealand had prepared him in manifold ways. Vigorous debates at the family
dinner table combined with secondary school classes in Kantian moral philosophy and the
discipline of competitive distance running influenced his later successes in scientific
research. As a university undergraduate he was fascinated by the ability of enzymes to catalyze
chemical reactions and set out to gain the expertise to understand how they did it. Steve loved
to experiment and didn't leave the bench for many years to come. Keep it simple be
counter-dogma and ignore the opinions of referees were his guiding principles. Read how his
ambition to understand the chemistry of enzyme catalysis led stephen kent to the United States
and about his adventures there in science and everyday life. l-i-c.org
