In the 1980s, efforts to determine the structures of all known proteins needed to overcome one large – or more accurately speaking, microscopic – barrier. Many proteins involved in vital biological functions, such as the transport of nutrients into cells or nerve impulses, span the fatty membranes that surround every cell in order to carry…

In the first half of the 20th century, crystallization of small simple molecules had become a vital process in understanding their chemical nature, but could crystallization also help in understanding the chemical nature of vital processes? Three scientists overcame the barrier of crystallizing proteins in different ways, and for their achievements they shared the Nobel…

Dorothy Hodgkin, one of the main founders of protein crystallography, possessed a unique mixture of skills that allowed her to extend the use of X-rays to reveal the structures of compounds that were far more complex than anything attempted before. Victory in Europe Day in Oxford, 8 May 1945. The war in Europe was over,…

Obtaining chemical structures with X-rays is more than just a matter of passing X-rays through crystals and generating data that reveal the final structure. The scientist’s ability to handle the data and ‘see’ the structure is of vital importance, and Dorothy Hodgkin was one of the field’s finest experts. X-ray crystallography was a relatively new…

The inspiration that X-rays could reveal the structures of chemical compounds inevitably gave way to the perspiration required to solve more and more complicated structures. Max Perutz and John Kendrew received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1962 for their major achievement of successfully using X-rays to determine the structures of complex proteins. The pattern…

For Max Perutz, proving that X-rays could reveal the structures of complex, biologically important proteins would require a large dose of inspiration followed by an even larger amount of perspiration.

I was born in the capital of Scotland on Victoria Day in the middle of World War II. The nursing home in Edinburgh where this cliff-hanger of an event took place, during the early evening of 24th May 1942, was located at 57 Manor Place. It was not anticipated that a little boy weighing in…

I was born on October 21, 1944 in Paris, just before the end of the second world war and a few months after Paris had been liberated by the allies and the French army led by General Charles de Gaulle (August 19–25, 1944). My mother’s name was Lydie Angèle Arcelin and her family came mostly…

It is a great privilege to be able to stand on the shoulders of the giants of chemistry and in doing so experience the marvels of the molecular world and provide “challenges for our youth, dreams for the people, and opportunities for industry.” For me being a scientist engaged in designing new molecules and chemical…

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