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Max Perutz
1914–2002 · United Kingdom, Austria · Born 1900–1939
Nobel Chemistry 1962
Austrian-born British molecular biologist; founded the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and solved the structure of haemoglobin.
Nobel-winning work
Perutz introduced the method of isomorphous replacement — attaching heavy atoms to protein crystals to solve the phase problem in X-ray diffraction — and used it to determine the three-dimensional structure of haemoglobin. Together with John Kendrew’s myoglobin work, this founding achievement of structural biology earned the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Fields
Related topics
Protein structure and function
A protein is a sequence that folds into a shape; its surface and flexibility help determine what it can bind or catalyse.
Cryo-EM, protein crystallography
Structural biologists infer molecular architecture from scattered electrons or X-ray diffraction, with distinct sample preparation and data-processing limits.