Aaron Klug

Sir Aaron Klug
OM FRS
Aaron Klug in 1979
Born (1926-08-11) 11 August 1926[1]
Želva, Lithuania
Nationality British
Alma mater
Known for Crystallographic electron microscopy[2]
Spouse(s)
Liebe Bobrow (m. 1948)
[1]
Children Two[1]
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Thesis The kinetics of phase changes in solids (1953)
Doctoral advisor Douglas Hartree[6]
Website www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/group-leaders/emeritus/aaron-klug

Sir Aaron Klug OM HonFRMS PRS[3] (born 11 August 1926) is a Lithuanian-born, South African-educated, British chemist and biophysicist, and winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes.[7][8][9][10][11][1][12]

Education and early life

From right to left: Prince Claus of the Netherlands, Aaron Klug and his wife Liebe Bobrow, 1979

Klug was born in Želva to Jewish parents Lazar, a cattleman, and Bella (née Silin) Klug with whom he moved to South Africa at the age of two.[13][14] He was educated at Durban High School.[1] He later graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of the Witwatersrand and studied for his Master of Science degree at the University of Cape Town[1] before he was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851,[15] which enabled him to move to England, completing his PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1953.

Career and research

Following his PhD, Klug moved to Birkbeck College in the University of London in late 1953, and started working with Rosalind Franklin in John Bernal's lab. This experience aroused a lifelong interest in the study of viruses, and during his time there he made discoveries in the structure[16] of the tobacco mosaic virus. In 1962 he moved to the newly built Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge. Over the following decade Klug used methods from X-ray diffraction, microscopy and structural modelling to develop crystallographic electron microscopy in which a sequence of two-dimensional images of crystals taken from different angles are combined to produce three-dimensional images of the target. In 1962 Klug was offered a teaching Fellowship at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He went on teaching after his Nobel Prize because he found the courses interesting and was later made an Honorary Fellow at the College.[1][17]

He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Campaign for Science and Engineering.[18]

He is also a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at The Scripps Research Institute.[19]

Awards and honours

Klug was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University in 1981. Between 1986 and 1996 he was director of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, and was knighted by Elizabeth II in 1988.[20] He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1969[3] and served as President from 1995–2000. He was appointed Order of Merit in 1995 – as is customary for Presidents of the Royal Society. His certificate of election to the Royal Society reads:

In 2005 he was awarded South Africa's Order of Mapungubwe (gold) for exceptional achievements in medical science.[22]

Personal life

Klug married Liebe Bobrow in 1948.[1] Though Klug had faced discrimination in South Africa, he remained religious and according to Sydney Brenner, he has become more religious in his older age.[23]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 KLUG, Sir Aaron. ukwhoswho.com. Who's Who. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc. (subscription required)
  2. ↑ Shafrir, E. (1994). "Aaron Klug--a pioneer of crystallographic electron microscopy". Israel journal of medical sciences. 30 (9): 734. PMID 8088991.
  3. 1 2 3 "Sir Aaron Klug OM FRS". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 2015-11-07.
  4. ↑ "Honourary Fellows". www.rms.org.uk. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
  5. ↑ "Honorary Fellows Past and Present". www.rms.org.uk. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
  6. ↑ Aaron Klug at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  7. ↑ Nobel Foundation (18 October 1982). "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1982" (Press release). The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
  8. ↑ Wakabayashi, K. (1983). "Accomplishment of Dr. Aaron Klug, winner of Nobel prize in chemistry, 1982". Tanpakushitsu kakusan koso. Protein, nucleic acid, enzyme. 28 (2): 156–157. PMID 6342048.
  9. ↑ Shampo, M. A.; Kyle, R. A. (1994). "Sir Aaron Klug--Nobel Prize winner for chemistry". Mayo Clinic Proceedings. 69 (6): 556. doi:10.1016/S0025-6196(12)62247-2. PMID 8189761.
  10. ↑ Aaron Klug biography at the Nobel Foundation
  11. ↑ Finch, John (2008). A Nobel Fellow On Every Floor. Medical Research Council. ISBN 978-1-84046-940-0. this book is all about the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.
  12. ↑ Aaron Klug archive collection - Churchill Archives Centre finding aid.
  13. ↑ "The Papers of Sir Aaron Klug". Churchill Archives Centre. Retrieved 2016-03-03.
  14. ↑ "Desert Island Discs – Castaway : Sir Aaron Klug first broadcast 2002-05-12". BBC.
  15. ↑ 1851 Royal Commission Archives
  16. ↑ Amos, L.; Finch, J. T. (2004). "Aaron Klug and the revolution in biomolecular structure determination". Trends in Cell Biology. 14 (3): 148–152. doi:10.1016/j.tcb.2004.01.002. PMID 15003624.
  17. ↑ "Eminent Petreans". University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 2015-06-26.
  18. ↑ "Advisory Council of the Campaign for Science and Engineering". Sciencecampaign.org.uk. Archived from the original on 28 August 2010. Retrieved 11 February 2011.
  19. ↑ "Scripps Research Scientific Board Meets in Florida". Scripps Research Institute. 2004-01-26. Retrieved 2016-03-03.
  20. ↑ "Aaron Klug (1926–)". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 7 November 2009.
  21. ↑ "Certificate of Election EC/1969/19: Aaron Klug". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 8 November 2015.
  22. ↑ "National Orders awards 27 September 2005". State of South Africa. 29 September 2005. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 13 September 2007.
  23. ↑ Hargittai, Istva'n & Magdolna. 2006. Candid Science VI: More Conversations with Famous Scientists. Imperial College Press, p. 33

Further reading

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