David Phillips(1924-99)

摘要

Nineteen sixty was the spring of hope for protein crystallography. The determination of the structures of myoglobin at 2-A resolution by John Kendrew and of haemoglobin at 5.5 A by Max Perutz had shown how structural studies could yield biological information. Yet, for several years, no new protein structures were solved and anxiety set in. Maybe the globins had been flukes. David Phillips's structure determination of lysozyme in 1965 completely changed that view. This work first showed the power of protein crystallography to explain biological function in terms of physics and chemistry. It changed forever the way that enzymes are studied and was the start of the explosion in the number of protein structures being solved.