Max Perutz
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM (May 19, 1914 – February 6, 2002) was an Austrian-British molecular biologist.
He was born in Vienna in 1914. In 1936 he became a research student at the Cavendish Laboratory in a crystallography group directed by J.D. Bernal, and remained in Cambridge subsequently.
During World War II, he was asked to find a way to improve the structural qualities of ice for Project Habakkuk (a secret project to build an aircraft carrier made of ice) and investigated the recently invented mixture of ice and woodpulp known as pykrete.
In 1953 Perutz showed that the diffracted X-rays from protein crystals could be phased by comparing the patterns from crystals of the protein with and without heavy atoms attached. In 1959 he determined the molecular structure of the protein hemoglobin, which transports oxygen in the blood, using this method. In 1962 he received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, with John Kendrew.
In the history of science, Perutz is also known as the supervisor of James D. Watson and Francis Crick during the early 1950's, during which time Watson and Crick determined the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Perutz established the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England in 1962 and was chairman until 1979. He remained active in research to the end of his life. From the mid-1980s on he was a regular reviewer/essayist for The New York Review of Books on biomedical subjects.
Perutz's flair for writing was a late development. Leo Perutz, the distinguished writer and a relative, once told Max when he was a boy that he would never be a writer, and so one of his most cherished awards was one for scientific writing. "I wish I had made you angry earlier" (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; 1998) contains a selection of his essays on science, scientists and humanity. [1]
Max Perutz and his wife Gisela's son, Robin Perutz, is a professor of chemistry at the University of York in England.
Max Perutz's biography by Georgina Ferry is due for publication by Chatto & Windus in July 2007; his major contribution to molecular biology in Cambridge is well documented in The History of the University of Cambridge: Volume 4 (1870 to 1990) published by CUP in 1992.
[edit] Books
- Is Science Necessary: Essays on Science and Scientists
- I Wish I'd Made You Angry Earlier: Essays on Science, Science, Scientists, and Humanity
- Proteins and nucleic acids: structure and function.
- Science is Not a Quiet Life: Unravelling the Atomic Mechanism of Haemoglobin
- Glutamine Repeats and Neurodegenerative Diseases: Molecular Aspects
- Le molecole dei viventi, Di Renzo Editore, Roma, ISBN: 8886044917
- Protein Structure: A User's Guide
[edit] References
- Olby, Robert, The Path to the Double Helix: The Discovery of DNA; University of Washington Press, Seattle 1974 & 1994) ISBN 0-486-68117-3
- Judson, Horace Freeland, The Eighth Day of Creation, Touchstone (New York), 1979, p. 170.
|
Nobel Laureate in Chemistry |
||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Melvin Calvin |
Nobel Prize in Chemistry with John Kendrew 1962 |
Succeeded by Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta |
[edit] External links
- Biography by his colleagues at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
- Freeview online video interview with Max Perutz provided by the Vega Science Trust (Approx 40 mins long)
- Max Perutz's CV at the MRC Lab
- Publications of Max Perutz
- Nobel website biography
- PhysicsWeb Max Perutz biographical article
- Lawrence Bragg
- Bragg and the founding of MRC Laboratory OF Molecular Biology
- Max F. Perutz Laboratories (Universtity of Vienna & Medical University of Vienna)
 |
This article about a biochemist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 |
This Austrian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 This article about a British scientist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Categories: Biochemist stubs | Austrian people stubs | British scientist stubs | 1914 births | 2002 deaths | Natives of Vienna | Alumni of Peterhouse, Cambridge | Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences | Molecular biologists | Austrian biologists | British biologists | British Jews | Austrian Jews | Jewish scientists | Nobel laureates in Chemistry | Members of the Order of Merit | Biophysicists
