The Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics was born in the office of Vice President Harry Wellman on the Berkeley campus in 1955. At that time there existed in the College of Agriculture, UCB, a small department of Agricultural Biochemistry consisting of H.A. Barker, E.E. Conn, W.Z. Hassid and P.K. Stumpf (Chair). It was essentially a research unit with relatively light teaching loads. On returning to the Berkeley campus from a sabbatical leave (1954-1955), P.K. Stumpf was asked by Wellman to consider the possibility of organizing a biochemistry unit in the College of Agriculture on the Davis campus with a similar unit on the Berkeley campus, both of which would have teaching and research duties while the administration of these units would remain on the Berkeley campus. Stumpf's reply was that this type of organization was inefficient but that he would be willing to explore establishing an independent department on the Davis Campus. He asked both Barker and Hassid whether they were interested in the move but both colleagues, with a long and distinguished careers on the Berkeley campus, declined the invitation. He also asked E.E. Conn whether he would care to join Stumpf in a possible move to Davis. Conn agreed promptly and by 1956 plans began to gel. Fortunately a new building was being planned on the Davis campus, to be later named Hoagland Hall. Provost Stanley Freeborn made the decision to allocate the second floor west wing of the new building to the new Department of Agricultural Biochemistry. July 1, 1958 was the first fiscal year of the new Department but Hoagland Hall was not completed until February, 1959. In the meantime the department was housed in a single office in Haring Hall. In the reorganization of the new department an additional FTE was allocated and Lloyd Ingraham of the Western Regional Laboratory, USDA, was asked to join the new unit. The total UCD campus enrollment at that time was 2300 students, the town's population was 8300, and there were no stop lights in the community!
During the construction of Hoagland Hall, Stumpf was a frequent visitor of the Hoagland facility, checking out various aspects of the construction. On one occasion he noticed that the sign painter was about to paint on the door of the Department's office the name "Department of Agricultural Biochemistry." Stumpf decided at that point in time that the adjective "Agricultural" was not necessary and so advised the painter who accordingly painted on the door the "Department of Biochemistry." About a year later Stumpf, serving as Chair, heard rumors that another administrative unit was proposing the establishment of a Biophysics unit. He sent off a letter to Dean Fred Briggs of the College of Agriculture recommending strongly that it was entirely appropriate to expand the title of the department to the "Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics," its official title until it became the "Section of Biochemistry" in July 1992. It should be noted that in the late fifties and the early sixties administrative changes were easy to carry out. Indeed the appointment of Ingraham and a number of later appointments were based on sending out inquiries to leading biochemistry departments asking for recommendations for possible candidates for positions in the Department; lists were compiled by the small faculty, narrowed to a few candidates who were then asked to present a seminar. No advertisements in Science, etc. were required and the process proceeded smoothly to the final selection. In this way, appointments were made in the early sixties. Interestingly, five of the new appointments in the sixties were trained at the University of Wisconsin. Letters of inquiry to the Chair of Biochemistry at Wisconsin, a good friend of both Stumpf and Conn, always resulted in glowing letters of recommendations. Hence five faculty members from Wisconsin!
In February 1959, the research groups of Stumpf and Conn which had remained on the Berkeley campus, moved to the new quarters and thus department research and teaching activities were housed under one roof. In the meantime, the young Department obtained an NIH Graduate Training grant which permitted it to attract graduate students and postdoctorals at a rapid rate. Until its termination in 1979, this grant was a dominant factor in allowing the Department to build a national reputation. An equally important event was the appointment of Emil Mrak in 1969 to the new post of Chancellor of the Davis campus and the upgrading of the campus to a full scale university status. Mrak was very influential in having the department established on the Davis campus and was a strong supporter of its development throughout his entire term as chancellor.
Initially, the graduate program was associated with the Berkeley based Comparative Biochemistry Graduate Group largely because of an imbalance of biochemists on the Davis campus in the early sixties. Since the campus was growing rapidly during the middle sixties, the Davis graduate subgroup decided in 1968 to break away from the Berkeley group and thus in 1969 the Graduate School established its own Biochemistry Graduate group; its members comprised all qualified faculty on the campus.
By 1962 the Hoagland Hall facility became hopelessly inadequate with six faculty occupying space designed for four. Fortunately, the Department was assigned to occupy the top floor of the newly constructed Hutchison Hall in 1963. Once more the Department expanded with the appointment of seven new faculty from 1964 to 1969 (Table I) and once more it became painfully clear that new facilities would be necessary. Dr. Bruening and Dr. Toliver were housed in a laboratory in Hoagland Hall; Dr. Hedrick was in a small laboratory on the first floor of Hutchison Hall as was Dr. Ingraham's lab. Ingraham's office was in the basement of Hutchison Hall and the rest of the faculty was saturating the facilities on the top floor. All teaching laboratories were across the campus in the old Chemistry Building (now Young Hall). Chancellor Mrak, realizing the critical nature of the space problem, appointed Harry Lange (Entomology) and P.K. Stumpf to head up a building committee to oversee the development of a new building to be called Briggs Hall. Lange and Stumpf were able to obtain major federal support (Office of Education, NIH and NSF) to supplement state funds for its construction. For $10,290,000 the 120,000 square foot building was constructed during 1968-71. In October 1971 the Department moved into their new facilities of 49,698 square feet. The new Department of Biological Chemistry of the newly founded Medical School (with Ed Krebs as Chair) borrowed space for their faculty from our assigned space allocation while their own facilities were under construction. Other departments assigned to the building included Entomology, Genetics and Animal Physiology. When Krebs' group moved to their own labs Wildlife and Fisheries were assigned to their space by Dean Charles Hess.