NATURE 25/9 N&V (Page 340)

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Obituary he had introduced Kendrew to a friend, John Cowdery Kendrew (1917–97) John Bennett from the Cambridge computer lab (EDSAC). In 1952, Bennett Pioneer in structural biology and Kendrew wrote a three-dimensional Fourier program, probably the first. and collaborative biological In 1962 Perutz and Kendrew were research in Europe awarded the Nobel prize. That same year ARGENT GODFREY they moved into the splendid new MRC “... and in a jungle in Ceylon, J. D. Bernal Laboratory of Molecular Biology on Hills talked with John Kendrew about the way it Road, Cambridge, with Perutz as director, should be possible to use X-rays to solve the and Kendrew as deputy director and head structure of proteins and so to understand of the division of structural studies. their function in every living organism.” However, he was restless, in search of Thus wrote Dorothy Hodgkin about how new organizational peaks to conquer. In wartime operational research, concerned parallel to his Cambridge appointment he with elephants and bombs, inspired was deputy scientific adviser to the Kendrew’s ensuing research career. Ministry of Defence and later chairman of Sir John Kendrew died on 23 August, the Defence Scientific Advisory aged 80. He was educated at schools in Committee, which earned him his Oxford and Bristol, and took his knighthood. At the same time plans for a undergraduate degree (a first in chemistry) European Molecular Biology Laboratory, in 1939, at Trinity College, Cambridge. Like to be modelled on the particle-physics so many other scientists, during the Second research facility CERN, were taking shape. World War he worked on radar, before Kendrew was appointed project leader and being posted to southeast Asia as scientific carried out all the intricate negotiations adviser to the Allied Air Command. leading to the successful founding of this At the outbreak of peace he sought out orientations and compute the Fourier laboratory in Heidelberg in 1974 (he would Max Perutz, an erstwhile student of transform to give the electron density. have preferred Nice, but France had just Bernal’s. Impressed by Kendrew’s uniform Unfortunately, the diffracted intensities got the new CERN ring so Germany must as a wing commander, Perutz took him on yield only the amplitudes; the phases are have EMBL). as his second in command to work in the lost, but it was thought that they might be In Heidelberg, he made the theme fledgling Medical Research Council unit recovered by adding a heavy metal at a technology for molecular biology. He set for molecular biology at the Cavendish specific site in each molecule. To everyone’s up the EMBL outstations at DESY Laboratory, Cambridge, under Sir surprise this method worked and was used (Hamburg) and ILL (Grenoble) for Lawrence Bragg (Kendrew may also have by Perutz to calculate a projection map of synchrotron light as an X-ray source and benefited from his entitlement to the haemoglobin in 1953. Kendrew applied for neutron scattering; the DESY residue of a senior scholarship from this method to myoglobin using three- outstation was the first in the world to use Trinity, which meant he didn’t cost too dimensional data and many different synchrotron radiation as a source for X-ray much). This extraordinarily fruitful heavy atoms, and in 1957 produced the diffraction. In the Heidelberg laboratory collaboration led to the joint award of the first low-resolution map of a protein. It he promoted many technologies, Nobel prize for chemistry just over a showed myoglobin to be almost entirely Ȋ- particularly cryo-electron and optical decade later. Moreover, they recruited helical, the helices being coiled round each microscopy. Furthermore, he hired bright Francis Crick, Hugh Huxley, Jim Watson other and round the haem group. young project leaders and gave them and Sydney Brenner to the unit, all of Four years later Kendrew had the freedom to develop. By the time he retired whom became prime movers in modern coordinates of the 1,250 non-hydrogen as director-general in 1982 he had built up biology, and a dazzling array of post- atoms in myoglobin, an epoch-making a world-class laboratory. doctoral students passed through the lab. achievement. The enormous impact that Between 1982 and 1988 John Kendrew Perutz set out to solve the structure of these discoveries were to have on was vice-president and then president of haemoglobin, the oxygen carrier in blood. biochemistry was only slowly appreciated the International Council of Scientific Kendrew chose myoglobin, haemoglobin’s by classical biochemists, which in 1958 Unions, and he was a governor of the small brother. The first attempt was with motivated Kendrew to found the Journal of Weizmann Institute, Israel, where he had horse myoglobin but this would not Molecular Biology. many friends. On leaving EMBL he was crystallize properly. Try another species? Kendrew ran his lab as chief of staff. He appointed president of St John’s College, Kendrew realized that myoglobin, an himself developed numerical techniques Oxford, and was very happy to return to oxygen storage protein found in muscle, for finding the relative positions of the the city of his childhood and once more to should be abundant in aquatic mammals. heavy atoms. Automatic methods for work with students. In his Cambridge days For reasons connected with the war, the measuring the intensities of some 100,000 he was a Fellow of Peterhouse College, and nearby ‘low-temperature laboratory’ had Bragg reflections were devised. Numerous shortly before his death was awarded an cold rooms stuffed with whale meat, which computing ladies were entrusted with the honorary doctorate by the university, duly yielded crystals of the quality collection and collation of all the data. which occasioned him great pride. necessary for X-ray diffraction. Bigger and better X-ray sources were built. K. C. Holmes How does one work out the structure of Early experiences had convinced Hugh K. C. Holmes is in the Max-Planck-Institut für a molecule containing thousands of atoms? Huxley that computing Fourier Medizinische Forschung, Abteilung Biophysik, In principle it’s easy: you collect the X-ray summations by hand was not a task Jahnstrasse 29, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany. diffraction data from the crystal in all befitting the human condition. As a result e-mail: [email protected]