PHOTOSYNTHESIS* 



J. A. BASSHAM and M. CALVIN, Radiation Laboratory and 

 Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 



During the past decade, considerable advance in the under- 

 standing of the complex process of photosynthesis has been 

 realized. This achievement has resulted both from the use of 

 new methods of investigation and from the stimulation of interest, 

 partly as a result of these new techniques, which has led to very 

 widespread participation in the study of this problem throughout 

 the scientific world. Fortunately, compilation and discussion of 

 this immense amount of work (17,26,27,34,46,47,65) — together 

 with review articles of the most recent work (30,36,41) — have 

 generally kept pace with the work itself. In the present instance, 

 therefore, no responsibility for a complete inclusion of published 

 work will be assumed, but rather, an attempt will be made to 

 present some current opinions regarding selected aspects of 

 photosynthesis, together with some speculations in areas that 

 may be expected to prove fruitful in the near future. 



From the discoveries of recent years, it has become in- 

 creasingly apparent that photosynthesis includes a number of 

 cyclic processes which are coupled to one another in such a way 



* The preparation of this paper and the original work described were 

 sponsored by the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission. 



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