Remembering Max Perutz (1914-2002)
Max Perutz dancing with his wife Gisela at the
1962 Nobel ball
Image credit: Wikipedia
Max Perutz was not a Budleigh resident. But he
certainly helped to give the place distinction, and for that reason among many
others I will be toasting his health on 19 May. It’s 100 years since his birth,
recognised this year by Royal Mail which has honoured him with a stamp as part
of the ‘Remarkable Lives’ series.
Max Ferdinand Perutz, OM,
CH, CBE, FRS, was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the
1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew for their studies of the
structures of haemoglobin and globular proteins. He went on to win the Royal
Medal of the Royal Society in 1971 and the Copley Medal in 1979. At Cambridge he founded the
Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, 14 of whose
scientists have won Nobel Prizes. He was its Chairman from 1962 to 1979.
Perutz’s scientific career in Britain had begun 40 or so years before that
date when he arrived as a student in Cambridge
to work at the Cavendish Laboratory.
Born in Vienna, he had studied chemistry
at the city’s University and had come to Britain in 1936, keen to work in
the field of X-ray crystallography. While at Cambridge
he came into contact with a group of engineering students at Peterhouse College,
one of whom was John Carter, a young officer in the Royal Engineers who just
happened to live in Budleigh. The
engineering student’s father was amateur geologist and archaeologist George
Carter. His sister was Priscilla, a co-founder of Fairlynch Museum,
better known to Budleigh people as Mrs Hull.
Among George Carter’s geological investigations in Budleigh were the strange
nodules or grey balls of rock protruding from the cliffs, surrounded by pale
green haloes of sand. He had already
established the slight radioactive nature of the nodules, and it was John
Carter who suggested to his Austrian friend that the Cavendish Laboratory might
have facilities sophisticated enough to enable proper experiments to be made.
Max Perutz visited Budleigh and took up
enthusiastically the study of the nodules, collecting some samples and
examining them at Cambridge.
He was keen to find an original subject for a scientific thesis, and was
delighted to be invited to prepare an exhibition of the geological specimens from Budleigh at the Royal
Society’s formal Conversazione or evening party in May 1937 at London’s Burlington
House.
The event was not as successful as he had hoped, and
not until 1939 did he succeed in having his research published by the
Leipzig-based periodical Mineralogische und Petrographische Mitteilungen. However Perutz’s dealings with the Budleigh
nodules were a valuable learning experience for him. He seems to have found the
work enjoyable compared with the crystallography projects that he had
undertaken at the Cavendish Laboratory. His contact with top scientists in
discussions concerning the nodules convinced him that he was destined for a
scientific career.
Fifty years later, at a dinner given at Peterhouse College to celebrate his 80th birthday,
he made a speech ironically titled ‘My First Great Discovery.’ He spoke of his
gratitude to George and John Carter. Priscilla
Hull, who attended the occasion, remembered his exact words: “If you ever get
to Budleigh Salterton do walk westwards
under the cliffs at low tide and have a look at the nodules. There also used to
be a small museum exhibiting old Carter’s discovery.”
Mrs Hull was pleased to be able to tell him that the
museum was flourishing, with a permanent display of the curious radioactive
nodules and copies of his thesis on sale.
After his study of the Budleigh nodules Perutz went on to use the X-ray diffraction method to
study the structure of haemoglobin crystals. His family fled from Austria in 1938, eventually coming to England. On the
outbreak of World War Two he was interned, but returned to Cambridge and was
involved in various secret wartime experiments because of his experience in
studying crystal structures and glaciers.
One of these projects was Project Habakkuk, aimed at building an
ice-platform in mid-Atlantic to enable the refuelling of aircraft.
The study of haemoglobin was a subject which was to
occupy Perutz for most of his professional career, and led to his becoming a
pioneer in the new field of molecular biology, co-founding a world-class
research laboratory and developing a technique to unlock the structure of
proteins. Later in life he turned to the study of changes in protein structures
implicated in Huntington
and other neurodegenerative diseases. He
also developed a career as a writer on science and philosophy, taking outspoken
stands on issues including religion and world peace.
All this was a long way from Budleigh Salterton and
those funny looking pebbles. But visit the newly refurbished Priscilla Carter
Room in Fairlynch Museum
today and let your mind go back to those early days in the formation of a
scientific genius. And if you’re young, and that way inclined, you might even
decide to follow in the footsteps of the great Max Perutz.
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