Alexander Rich

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Alexander Rich
Born(1924-11-15)15 November 1924
polysomes and Z-DNA
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsBiophysics
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology

Alexander Rich (15 November 1924 – 27 April 2015) was an American

post-doc of Linus Pauling. During this time he was a member of the RNA Tie Club, a social and discussion group which attacked the question of how DNA encodes proteins. He has over 600 publications to his name.[1]

Born in Hartford, Connecticut,[2] Rich was the founder of Alkermes and was a director beginning in 1987. Rich was co-chairman of the board of directors of Repligen, a biopharmaceutical company. He also served on the editorial board of Genomics and the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics.

Personal life

Rich spent his early life in Springfield, Massachusetts.[3] He grew up in a working-class family and worked in the U.S. Armory while he was in high school. From 1943 to 1946, Rich was in the U.S. Navy.[4]

He obtained a bachelor's in biochemical sciences from Harvard University in 1947 and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1949.[4] Rich died on 27 April 2015, aged 90.[5]

Academic career

At Harvard, Rich studied with

MIT in 1958. He worked diligently at MIT until his death in 2015.[4] He still went into lab until two months before his death.[4]

Contributions to science

His work played a pivotal role in the discovery of nucleic acid hybridization.[3][8]

In 1955, Rich and Crick solved the structure of collagen.[7]

In 1963, Rich discovered

mRNA simultaneously.[9]

From 1969 to 1980, he was a biology investigator looking for life on mars with NASA's Viking Mission to Mars.[10]

In 1973, Rich's lab determined the structure of tRNA.[11]

In 1979, Rich and co-workers at MIT grew a crystal of Z-DNA.[12] After 26 years of attempts, Rich et al. finally crystallised the junction box of B- and Z-DNA. Their results were published in an October 2005 Nature journal.[13] Whenever Z-DNA forms, there must be two junction boxes that allow the flip back to the canonical B-form of DNA.

List of awards and prizes received

Awards and prizes

  • Sigma Xi Proctor Prize, Raleigh, NC (2001)
  • Bower Award and Prize, the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA (2000)
  • National Medal of Science, Washington, DC (1995)
  • Linus Pauling Medal, American Chemical Society, Northwest Sections (1995)
  • Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award in Basic Biomedical Research, Brandeis Univ., Waltham, MA (1983)
  • James R. Killian Faculty Achievement Award, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1980)
  • Presidential Award, New York Academy of Science, New York, NY (1977)
  • Theodore van Karmen Award for Viking Mars Mission, Washington, DC (1976)
  • Skylab Achievement Award, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC (1974)

Academies

  • Foreign Member, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia (1994)
  • Honorary Member, Japanese Biochemical Society, Tokyo, Japan (1986)
  • Foreign Member, French Academy of Sciences, Paris, France (1984)
  • Honorary Doctorate, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1981)
  • American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA (1980)
  • Pontifical Academy of Sciences (1978)
  • National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (1970)
  • Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC (1965)
  • Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation (1963)
  • Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, MA (1959)
  • Fellow, National Research Council, Washington, DC (1949–51).

References

  1. S2CID 205085052
    .
  2. ^ a b "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 15 March 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ^ a b c d "Alexander Rich, the importance of RNA and the development of nucleic acid hybridization". MIT Department of Biology. 31 May 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  4. ^ a b c d e f "Alexander Rich dies at 90". MIT News. 28 April 2015. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  5. ^ Trafton A (2015). "Alexander Rich dies at 90".
  6. ^ "Alex Rich". Cold Spring Harbor Oral History. 2016. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  7. ^
    S2CID 9611917
    .
  8. ^ "Gobind Khorana and the rise of molecular biology". MIT Department of Biology. 24 May 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  9. PMID 13998950
    .
  10. ^ "ch7". history.nasa.gov. Retrieved 21 March 2020.
  11. PMID 26439533
    .
  12. S2CID 4337955
    .
  13. S2CID 2539819
    .
  14. ^ "2008 Welch Award in Chemistry Recipient". The Welch Foundation. Archived from the original on 19 October 2008.

Selected publications

External links
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