David M. Blow
David Mervyn Blow (born June 27, 1931 in Birmingham , † June 8, 2004 in Appledore , North Devon near Bideford ) was a British biophysicist . He is known for developing the X-ray structure studies of proteins.
Blow, the son of a Methodist minister who worked as a missionary in Madras , attended school in Bath and studied at Cambridge University (Corpus Christi College).
In his dissertation with Max Perutz at the Cavendish Laboratory , he developed the algorithm in X-ray crystallography (method of isomorphic replacement), which was later named after him and Francis Crick .
After two years in the USA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Alexander Rich (* 1924) and the National Institutes of Health , he was back in Cambridge in Perutz's group. There he and Michael Rossmann developed the molecular replacement method , which they also applied to the hemoglobin investigated by Max Perutz and John Kendrew . Among other things, Blow clarified the structure of alpha-chymotrypsin (1964).
In 1977 he became professor of biophysics at Imperial College London . From 1981 to 1984 he was dean and from 1991 to 1994 head of the physics faculty.
1972 Blow became a Fellow of the Royal Society . In 1979 he received the Prix Charles-Léopold Mayer , and in 1987 the Wolf Prize in Chemistry with David C. Phillips . He was a co-founder of the British Crystallographic Association and its president from 1986 to 1988.
Blow had been married since 1955 and had two children. Although not a smoker himself, he died of lung cancer.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Blow, David M. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Blow, David Mervyn (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British biophysicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 27, 1931 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Birmingham |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 8, 2004 |
| Place of death | Appledore , North Devon at Bideford |