Aaron Klug

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

HonFRMS
Aaron Klug in 1979
Born(1926-08-11)11 August 1926
Želva, Lithuania
Died20 November 2018(2018-11-20) (aged 92)
NationalityBritish
Education
  • BSc
    )
  • MSc
    )
  • PhD
    )
Known forCrystallographic electron microscopy
Spouse
Liebe Bobrow
(m. 1948)
ChildrenTwo
Awards

Knighted 1988
OM 1995

President of the Royal Society 1995–2000
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
ThesisThe kinetics of phase changes in solids (1953)
Doctoral advisorDouglas Hartree[2]
Websitewww2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/about-lmb/archive-and-alumni/alumni/aaron-klug/

Sir Aaron Klug

protein complexes
.

Early life and education

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

Klug was born in

Jewish parents Lazar, a cattleman, and Bella (née Silin) Klug, with whom he emigrated to South Africa at the age of two. He was educated at Durban High School. Paul de Kruif's 1926 book, Microbe Hunters, aroused his interest in microbiology.[3]

Klug was part of the

better source needed
]

He started to study microbiology, but then moved into physics and maths, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg. He studied physics under Reginald W. James and obtained his Master of Science degree at the University of Cape Town.[5] He was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship from the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851,[3] which enabled him to move to England, completing his PhD in research physics at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1953.[6]

Career and research

Following his PhD, Klug moved to

zinc fingers as well as the neurofibrils in Alzheimer's disease.[8]

Also in 1962, Klug became a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was later made an Honorary Fellow of the College.[5]

Between 1986 and 1996, Klug was director of the LMB. He served[

The Scripps Research Institute.[10]
He and
Dai Rees approached the Wellcome Trust to found the Wellcome Sanger Institute, which was a key player in the Human Genome Project.[8]

Awards and honours

Klug was awarded the

Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS),[12] the oldest national scientific institution in the world. He was elected its President (PRS) from 1995 to 2000. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1995 – as is customary for Presidents of the Royal Society. His certificate of election to the Royal Society reads:

Mathematical physicist and crystallographer distinguished for his contributions to molecular biology, especially the structure of viruses. Development of a theory of simultaneous temperature and phase changes in steels led him to apply related mathematical methods to the problem of diffusion and chemical reactions of gases in thin layers of haemoglobin solutions and in red blood cells. Then the late Rosalind Franklin introduced him to the x-ray study of tobacco mosaic virus to which he contributed by his application and further development of Cochran and Crick's theory of diffraction from helical chain molecules. Klug's most important work is concerned with the structure of spherical viruses. Together with D. Caspar he developed a general theory of spherical shells built up of a regular array of asymmetric particles. Klug and his collaborators verified the theory by x-ray and electron microscope studies, thereby revealing new and hitherto unsuspected features of virus structure.[13]

Klug was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[14] and the American Philosophical Society[15]

In 2000, Klug received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[16] In 2005, he was awarded South Africa's Order of Mapungubwe (gold) for exceptional achievements in medical science.[17] He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), also in 2005.[18]

In 2013, Israel's

Be'er Sheva, having visited them numerous times.[19][3]

Personal life

Klug married Liebe Bobrow in 1948;[5] they had two sons, one of whom predeceased them in 2000.[3] He died on 20 November 2018 in Cambridge.[20]

Though Klug had faced discrimination in South Africa, he remained religious and according to Sydney Brenner, he became more religious in his older age.[21]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Honorary Fellows". Royal Microscopical Society. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
  2. ^ Aaron Klug at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ a b c d Ferry, Georgina (26 November 2018). "Sir Aaron Klug obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 January 2019.
  4. OCLC 41871384
    .
  5. ^ required.)
  6. .
  7. .
  8. ^ .
  9. ^ "Advisory Council of the Campaign for Science and Engineering". Sciencecampaign.org.uk. Archived from the original on 28 August 2010. Retrieved 11 February 2011.
  10. Scripps Research Institute
    . 26 January 2004. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  11. ^ "Aaron Klug (1926–)". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 7 November 2009.
  12. ^ "Sir Aaron Klug OM FRS". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 7 November 2015.
  13. ^ "Certificate of Election EC/1969/19: Aaron Klug". London: Royal Society. Archived from the original on 8 July 2019.
  14. ^ "Aaron Klug". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  15. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
  16. American Academy of Achievement
    .
  17. ^ "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.
  18. ^ "Sir Aaron Klug – The Academy of Medical Sciences". acmedsci.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 24 November 2018. Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  19. Be'er Sheva
    . 14 April 2013. Retrieved 13 January 2019.
  20. PMID 30664739
    .
  21. ^ Hargittai, Istva'n & Magdolna. 2006. Candid Science VI: More Conversations with Famous Scientists. Imperial College Press, p. 33

Further reading

External links

Professional and academic associations
Preceded by 58th President of the Royal Society
1995–2000
Succeeded by