Photo credit: Rob Bogaerts / Anefo — Wikimedia Commons · CC0
Aaron Klug
1926–2018 · United Kingdom, South Africa · 20th century
Nobel Chemistry 1982
Lithuanian-born British chemist who turned electron microscopy into a tool for solving the 3D structures of large biological complexes.
Nobel Prize work
Developed crystallographic electron microscopy, combining electron micrographs taken at different angles into three-dimensional reconstructions of macromolecular assemblies. He applied it to reveal the architecture of viruses and nucleic acid-protein complexes such as the nucleosome of chromatin.
Fields
Related topics
DNA and RNA structure
DNA stores information in a paired double helix; RNA shares the nucleotide backbone but often forms diverse single-stranded folds.
Cryo-EM, protein crystallography
Structural biologists infer molecular architecture from scattered electrons or X-ray diffraction, with distinct sample preparation and data-processing limits.