SirAaron KlugOMPRS (August 11, 1926 – November 20, 2018) was aLithuanian-bornBritishchemist andbiophysicist.[1]
Klug won the 1982Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developingcrystallographicelectron microscopy and working out the structure ofnucleic acid-protein complexes.[2]
Klug was born in Želva,Lithuania toJewish parents. The family moved toSouth Africa when he was two. Klug graduated with a degree in science at the University of Witwatersrand and studiedcrystallography at theUniversity of Cape Town before moving to England, completing his doctorate atTrinity College, Cambridge in 1953.
He moved toBirkbeck College,University of London, in late 1953, and started working withRosalind Franklin inJohn Bernal's lab. This experience aroused a lifelong interest inviruses. During his time there he worked on the structure of thetobacco mosaic virus.
In 1962 he moved to the newly builtMRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. Klug used methods fromX-ray diffraction to develop crystallographic electron microscopy. In this method, two-dimensionalimages ofcrystals taken from different angles are combined to makethree-dimensional images of the target. He worked out the structure of importantnucleic acid-protein complexes.[2]
Between 1986 and 1996 he was Director of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, and wasknighted in 1988.[1] He was elected President of theRoyal Society, and served from 1995–2000. He was elected a member of theAcademia Europaea in 1990.[3] He was appointed to theOrder of Merit in 1995.
Klung died on November 20, 2018 inCambridge at the age of 92.[4]
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| 1901–1925 | |
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| 1926–1950 | |
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| 1951–1975 | |
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| 1976–2000 | |
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| 2001–present | |
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