Jerome Karle

Jerome Karle ( born June 18, 1918 in New York City as Jerome carbuncle, † June 6, 2013 in Annandale, Virginia) was an American physical chemist and crystallographer. For contributions to the development of " direct methods for crystal structure analysis," he received in 1985, together with Herbert A. Hauptman, Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Life

Karle 1937 acquired a bachelor's degree in biology and chemistry at City College of New York in 1938 and a Masters in Biology from Harvard University. He then worked at the New York State Department of Health ( NYSDOH ) in Albany, where he developed a method for measuring the fluorine content in drinking water. From 1940 Karle studied physical chemistry at the University of Michigan, where he graduated in 1942 his master's and doctorate in 1944. At the University of Chicago, he conducted research at times for the Manhattan Project.

From 1944 to 2009 he worked at the Naval Research Laboratory ( NRL), from 1968 as director of the Laboratory for the Structure of Matter ( LSM). 1953-1956 developed Karle and Herbert Hauptman Aaron a statistical method for the direct determination of crystal structures by X-ray analysis, an important analysis method that is used today computerized world. Particular importance has this method in the structure determination of organic and biologically important macromolecules.

Karle was from 1942 to the chemist Isabella Karle (born Lugoski ) married, he had met at the University of Michigan. His wife was from 1946 to 2009 also at the Naval Research Laboratory operates. The couple has three daughters.

The couple Karle devoted himself after the development of direct methods of structure determination of natural products. So they determined, among other things, the crystal structures of the alkaloids reserpine and Anemonin, the steroid digitoxigenin and the frog poison batrachotoxinin A. Karle but continued to work on improving the algorithms for structure determination.

Awards (selection)

436144
de