Linearizations of the Henri-Michaelis-Menten law of enzyme kinetics [6][7] were important in the era before general availability of computers to determine the parameters Vmax and Km from experimental data, even though there are significant statistical problems involved in this procedure.
All three possible methods of linearization (now often called Lineweaver-Burk, Eadie-Hofstee and Hanes plots, respectively) were originally proposed by Barnet Woolf, who was unable to formally publish them due to injuries received in a car accident.
In 1929, a year before graduating, he was appointed a junior scientific aide to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and worked as a chemist in the fertilizer section of the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils.
In 1939, he was transferred to the newly built Western Regional Research Laboratory of the USDA in Albany, California, as senior biochemist and head of the enzyme section in the biochemical division.
During and after World War II, Lineweaver collaborated with the Quartermasters Corps of the Armed Services in enzyme work related to poultry and powdered egg flavor and processing.
[13] He and his team developed the first USDA-approved method of pasteurizing egg white, and established a process of converting waste feathers into feed.