After completing a B.A. in chemistry at
UCLA in 1939, Kaplan studied
carbohydrate metabolism in the
liver under David M. Greenberg at the
University of California, Berkeley medical school. He earned his Ph.D. in 1943. From 1942 to 1944, Kaplan participated in the
Manhattan Project, and then spent a year as an instructor at
Wayne State University. From 1945 to 1949, Kaplan worked with
Fritz Lipmann, G. David Novelli, and
Beverly Guirard to study
coenzyme A. Kaplan went to the
University of Illinois College of Medicine as an assistant professor in 1949, and from 1950 to 1957 he worked at the
McCollum-Pratt Institute of
Johns Hopkins University. In 1957, he was recruited to head a new graduate program in biochemistry at
Brandeis University. In 1968, Kaplan moved to the
University of California, San Diego, where he studied the role of
lactate dehydrogenase in
cancer. He also founded a colony of
nude mice, a strain of
laboratory mice useful in the study of cancer and other diseases. In 1981, Kaplan became a founding member of the
World Cultural Council. Kaplan was, with
Sidney Colowick, a founding editor of the scientific book series
Methods in Enzymology. ==Notes and references==