Monday, May 2, 2011

Background information on the bracket namesakes

Linus Pauling won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in part for predicting the structures of α-helices and β-sheets. He won a second Nobel Prize in Peace for his work on nuclear disarmament. He was close to a third for the structure of DNA, but Watson and Crick beat him to it.

suggested links:

http://pauling.library.oregonstate.edu/

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1954/

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1962/

Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was a pioneer in x-ray crystallography, and many of the early protein crystallographers credit her work as a forerunner for theirs. She solved the first structures of vitamin B12 and insulin, among other things. She won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work in 1964

suggested links:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1964/hodgkin-bio.html

Jane Richardson was trained as a philosopher and a physicist but soon turned to studies of protein structures. She developed a means of representing α-helices and β-sheets in tertiary structures that is now the standard for protein structures, and she has continued her work as a pioneer in protein structure study and representation. She is now a member of the National Academy of Sciences, among other awards. In honor of her beautiful illustrations that have become the standard for understanding structure/function relationships, the prize for Protein of the Year is named “The Jane Richardson Cup.”

suggested links:

http://kinemage.biochem.duke.edu/lab/richardson/richardson.php

Max Perutz is another giant in protein x-ray crystallography, having solved the initial structures of both oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin and proposing the Perutz mechanism by which hemoglobin switches between the R state and T state to bind and release oxygen. Along with John Kendrew, he received the Nobel Prize for his work in studying the structures of globular proteins.

suggested links:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1962/perutz.html

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