Alexander Rich

Alexander Rich ( * November 15, 1924 in Hartford (Connecticut) ) is an American chemist, molecular biologist and biophysicist.

Rich studied chemistry and medicine at Harvard University (Bachelor 1947), where he earned his MD degree in 1949 at Harvard Medical School. As a post - graduate student, he was 1949 to 1954 when Linus Pauling at Caltech, 1955/56, at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and from 1954 at the National Institutes of Health ( NIH), where he headed the Department of Physical Chemistry. Since 1958 he is professor of biophysics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, since 1974, when William Thompson Sedgwick Professor of Biophysics.

Rich determined the three-dimensional structure of the RNA double helix, led first RNA-DNA hybridization and from first discovered DNA in organelles. He determined the three-dimensional structure of t- RNA.

Rich is the discoverer of the polysomes (1963) and the Z- DNA ( left-handed helix - coil instead of the more common B form ). In 1979, his group at MIT ( with Andrew Wang ), a Z - DNA crystal face, the first DNA that was ever made in the form of a single crystal. In 2005 he presented his group a crystal form of the compound of B and Z DNA ago ( Nature, vol 437, 2005, pp. 1183 ). Also, the biological significance of Z-DNA Rich was able to contribute. In 2003, he discovered that a protein ( E3L ), which is important for the pathogenicity of smallpox virus ( it prevents infected by the virus cells themselves destroy ), so similar acts as a protein that binds to Z- DNA. Rich then worked on building on a drug that acts against the smallpox virus.

Rich is responsible for more than 600 publications (2010).

1969 to 1980 he was in the team of biologists of the Viking Mars probe. In 1974 he received the Skylab Achievement Award from NASA.

In 1987 he founded the pharmaceutical company Alkermes and is also involved in other biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. He is in the scientific council of U.S. Genomics Inc.

In 1995 he received the National Medal of Science and the Linus Pauling Medal of the American Chemical Society. In 2008 he received the Welch Award in Chemistry. In 1976 he received the Theodore von Karman Award, 1977 President's Award of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1983, Lewis Rosenstiel Award, 1980, the Jabotinsky Medal, the 2001 William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement and the 2000 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science of the Franklin Institute. In 2001 he was awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal and 2002 the Passano Award. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Berlin, ETH Zurich, the Weizmann Institute and the State University of Rio de Janeiro. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Chemical Society, foreign member of the French and Russian Academy of Sciences and member of the Institute of Medicine. In 1963 he was Guggenheim Fellow.

He is also active in disarmament and was from 1977 to 1982 in the Council of the Pugwash Conference.