McClare, Colin William Fraser, 1937-1977

Colin F. McClare was a biophysics professor who spent much of his academic career trying to devise a new theory to explain biochemical processes. As a student, he attended Felsted School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he studied chemistry. As a Medical Research Council student in 1958-1961, McClare conducted research on free radicals at Cambridge. As a Beit Fellow in 1961-1963, he researched energy transfer in nucleic acids. McClare was awarded a Ph.D. in 1962, after which he became a lecturer in Biophysics at King's College, London in 1963-1977. McClare's research in bioenergetics and the problems of muscle contraction led him to conclude that classical thermodynamics was inadequate to explain biological processes and that the application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to biological machines required the introduction of time scales. His ideas were not generally accepted and, although he wrote extensively on the subject, his papers were denied publication until four controversial papers appeared in the Journal of Theoretical Biology and Nature, 1971-1972. The essays generated vigorous debates among scientists all over the world, but ultimately, McClare's unorthodox views failed to gain the approval of established scientific opinion.

From the description of Colin F. McClare papers, 1960s-1970s. (George Mason University). WorldCat record id: 748827943