Commonly known as the Lowry paper, to which field does it pertain?

Oliver Howe Lowry (July 18, 1910 – June 29, 1996) was an American biochemist. Among all his numerous contributions to biochemistry, Lowry is best known for his development of the 'Lowry protein assay', used in the determination of protein concentrations. As of September 2015, his 1951 paper in the 'Journal of Biological Chemistry' was still the most-highly cited paper of all time with more than 310,000 citations, although Lowry stated it was not the most important paper he had ever written.

Lowry was the youngest of a family of five children. His father was a teacher and later an administrator in the Chicago public school system. His three brothers and sister all earned graduate degrees in various fields, and Lowry was inspired to emulate his siblings.

After graduating from the University of Chicago with his two doctoral degrees, Lowry failed in his attempt to secure a postdoctoral fellowship. He left Chicago to work at Harvard University under A. Baird Hastings.

In 1947, Washington University in St. Louis invited Lowry to head its Department of Pharmacology despite the fact that Lowry had never taken a course in pharmacology and his research was only tangentially related to that field. He also served as dean of the Washington University School of Medicine from 1955 to 1958. Lowry continued to work at Washington University until his retirement. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 1964.