Paul M. Doty

Paul Mead Doty ( born June 1, 1920 in Charleston (West Virginia ); † 5 December 2011) was an American biochemist and disarmament expert.

Life

Doty studied at the Pennsylvania State University with a bachelor's degree in 1941 and from Columbia University with a master's degree in 1943 and his doctorate in Joseph Mayer 1944. During this time he was instructor at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, where he 1945 Assistant Professor been. 1946/47, he was a Rockefeller Fellow at the University of Cambridge. In 1946, he was Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame in 1948 and an assistant professor and in 1956 professor at Harvard University. In 1968 he founded the Harvard School of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and was its first chairman. Earlier (1961 ) he brought James Watson to Harvard and was from 1963 to 1980 Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows. He was Mallinckrodt Professor of Biochemistry and Director and founder in 1973 of the Center for Science and International Affairs ( later Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs ) in the John F. Kennedy School of Government. 1988 and 1990 ( Kennedy School of Government ), he retired.

He had two careers, one in biochemistry and one in international disarmament issues.

Biochemistry

Mid-1940s, he turned to Bruno H. Zimm in the laboratory of Hermann F. Mark light scattering on the size and shape determination of polymers to ( Zimm plot). Later been extended to proteins and nucleic acids and Doty examined, inter alia, the melting of DNA ( resolution of the double strand at high temperatures ) and had the inversion according to, hybridization of DNA. In RNA single strands, he demonstrated internal hybridization, so this was shorter than expected on the number of bases. He appointed a his lab also the shape of certain proteins such as collagen.

66 students were supervised by him 44 professors and 85 of his post-doctoral were 33 professors.

Disarmament Affairs

He was interested early in disarmament issues. His interest in it woke up when he was involved as a student at the edge of the isotope separation research in the Manhattan Project. In 1957 he was chairman of the Federation of American Scientists, and was involved in the first Pugwash conferences. In 1958 he made ​​his first of many trips to the Soviet Union and in 1960 he became a member of the President's Scientific Advisory Committee ( PSAC ). He founded a committee at the National Academy of Sciences for scientific exchanges with the Soviet Union and organized the Pugwash conferences in Moscow in 1960 and 1961 in the United States. It also friendships with leading Soviet scientists such as Peter Kapitza developed. In 1964 he moved his activities of the Pugwash Conferences on bilateral groups of scientists from the Soviet Union and the United States, which he conducted with the Vice President of the Soviet Academy of Sciences MD Millionschikow. The group played an important role in the preparation of the ABM Treaty. Doty became a consultant ( special assistant ) of the U.S. President for National Security and discussed in this function Henry Kissinger. Later he was a member of the Advisory Group of the U.S. president for arms control. 1971 to 1984 he directed summer workshops on arms control at the Aspen Institute, from which then the Aspen Strategy Group was. From 1976, he continued the workshops in the newly founded Aspen Center in Berlin continued. In 1973 he founded the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, and was long the chairman and he founded the journal International Security. He was engaged Dartmouth conferences founded in the 1960 in the 1970s and 1980s to dialogue with the USSR and the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control ( CISAC ). In the 1990s he was active in the foundation of George Soros to support the Soviet scientist.

Honors and Memberships

In 1956 he received the American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry. In 1966 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Chicago. He was a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 1959/60 he held the Harvey Lecture.

Others

He is married to Helga Boedtker biochemist, with whom he also worked (for example, about collagen ).

He was in 1959 one of the founders of the Journal of Molecular Biology and with Hermann Mark 1945 of the Journal of Polymer Science.