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Richard Henderson
born 1945 · United Kingdom · Contemporary
Nobel Chemistry 2017
Scottish structural biologist whose work on membrane proteins proved electron microscopy could reach atomic resolution without crystals.
Nobel Prize work
Pioneered electron cryo-microscopy of biomolecules: obtaining the first atomic-resolution structure of a membrane protein (bacteriorhodopsin) by electron diffraction and imaging, and defining the physical limits that guided the field. With Jacques Dubochet and Joachim Frank his work made cryo-EM a routine way to determine biomolecular structures in solution-like conditions.
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.