David Mervyn Blow
| David Mervyn Blow | |
|---|---|
| Born |
27 June 1931 Birmingham, England |
| Died |
8 June 2004 (aged 72) Appledore, North Devon, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | Biophysicist |
| Institutions | Imperial College London |
| Alma mater | Corpus Christi College, Cambridge |
| Doctoral advisor | Max Perutz[1] |
| Other academic advisors | Alexander Rich[1] |
| Doctoral students |
Richard Henderson Paul Sigler[1] |
| Other notable students |
Thomas A. Steitz Brian Matthews[1] |
| Known for |
Haemoglobin X-ray crystallography |
| Notable awards | FRS[2] |
David Mervyn Blow FRS[2] (27 June 1931 – 8 June 2004) was an influential British biophysicist. He was best known for the development of X-ray crystallography, a technique used to determine the molecular structures of tens of thousands of biological molecules. This has been extremely important to the pharmaceutical industry.[3]
Early life and education
Blow was born in Birmingham, England. As a youth, he attended Kingswood School in Bath, England, where he won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Career
Following graduation from Cambridge, Blow spent two years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
In 1954, he met Max Perutz;[4] they began to study a new technique wherein X-rays would be passed through a protein sample. This eventually led to the creation of a three-dimensional structure of haemoglobin.
Blow was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1972.
Blow became professor of biophysics at Imperial College London in 1977.
Personal life
Blow married Mavis Sears in 1955, and they had two children.
Blow died of lung cancer at the age of 72, in Appledore, England.
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Blow on AcademicTree.org".
- 1 2 Henderson, R.; Franks, N. P. (2009). "David Mervyn Blow. 27 June 1931 -- 8 June 2004". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 55: 13. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2008.0022.
- ↑ Vrielink, A. (2005). "David Mervyn Blow". Physics Today. 58 (3): 88–81. Bibcode:2005PhT....58c..88V. doi:10.1063/1.1897573.
- ↑ Blow, D. M. (2004). "Max Ferdinand Perutz OM CH CBE. 19 May 1914 - 6 February 2002: Elected F.R.S. 1954". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 50: 227–256. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2004.0016. JSTOR 4140521. PMID 15768489.