Aaron Klug
Sir Aaron Klug, OM ( born August 11, 1926 in Želva, Vilnius County, Lithuania ) is a British biochemist and molecular biologist of South African origin.
Life
Aaron Klug is the son of Bella Silin Klug and Lazar Klug, a Lithuanian cattle dealer. Secondary sources often give Johannesburg, South Africa as the birthplace of, but according to his own autobiographical information Klug was born in Zelvas. When he was two years old, the family emigrated to Durban in South Africa. Here Aaron attended high school and more interested in the natural sciences. He was especially fascinated by the book Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif. After a medical pre-semester Klug began studying medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. In addition, he enrolled for the areas of chemistry, mathematics and physics. He completed his undergraduate studies in 1945, then moved on to a masters degree in physics at the University of Cape Town. His thesis was on X-ray studies of crystals.
In 1949 the family moved to England Klug, where the scientist had received a job at the Cavendish Laboratory. His hope of participation in the research team of Max Perutz and John Kendrew, however, was not fulfilled, so that Klug dealt with the study of the molecular structure of steel and on this subject wrote his doctoral thesis. In 1953 he managed to change at Birkbeck College in London, where he worked with Rosalind Franklin in the Arbeitgsgruppe by John Bernal. Franklin was considered Mitentdeckerin of the double helix structure of DNA. In this college Klug could examine the structure of viruses by means of X-rays in years of research, in particular the elucidation of the tobacco mosaic virus structure it had succeeded. After the death of Rosalind Franklin Aaron Klug was able to continue along with Kenneth Holmes, the research on virus signatures, and finally develop the new branch of crystallographic electron microscopy. When did the British Medical Research Council in Cambridge set up a new laboratory for molecular biology, Klug moved to this research facility. 1986 Klug, who was now an expert in the field of X-ray structural studies of viruses worldwide, was appointed director of the laboratory.
Aaron Klug is married since 1948 with love Bobrow, a choreographer. They have two sons, Adam (born 1954 ) and David ( b. 1963 ).
Klug is Professor of Molecular Biology of the Institute for Medical Research at the University of Cambridge.
Awards
Klug was awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of crystallographic electron microscopy and the study of the structure of biologically important nucleic acid -protein complexes. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he recalled Rosalind Franklin, whose research fellow he was, and who had contributed significantly with their X-ray diffraction diagrams for deciphering the DNA.
For his achievements he was awarded the British crown the Order of Merit.
The Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences honored Klug in 1979 with the HP Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics and Columbia University in 1981 with the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize.