Ever Max von Laue considered the possibilities of x-ray crystallography in the early 1910s, x-ray crystallography has risen to be one of the most exciting areas of science around. While he is usually considered to be the founder of this development, many people have built upon his work, forming the basis of modern x-ray crystallography today. If you are interested in knowing who they are, this list has been created to outline a variety of people who have won Nobel prizes for their work with x-ray crystallography. Read on now in order to learn all about it.
Max von Laue
The basis of Max von Laue’s discovery came through a walk through the English Garden in Munich, showing how important walking is to creativity. A colleague told him about his research, prompting Max von Laue to do the work that discovered the way in which crystals can be analyzed through the use of X-rays. He later won a Nobel prize in physics in 1914.
William Henry Bragg and Lawrence Bragg
Just the following year after Max Laue was awarded the Nobel prize, the father-and-son team William and Lawrence Bragg were awarded the Nobel prize in physics for their services in further analyzing crystal structures by using x-rays. They have their own mineral, Braggite, named after them.
Max F. Perutz and John C. Kendrew
While the previous winners of the Nobel prize involving x-ray crystallography were in physics, the win of Max F. Perutz and John Kendrew in 1962 was for chemistry, showing how the applications of x-rays could be moved into a more chemical sphere. They were awarded for their studies of hemoglobin and myoglobin. If you are interested in how x-ray diffraction works today, it’s worth checking out what Malvern Panalytical does.
James Dewey Watson, Francis Harry Compton Crick, and Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins
It is highly likely that you have the head of this Nobel prize, awarded for medicine in 1962, considering it is one of the most famous in the whole world of science. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins, along with Rosalind Franklin, who died before the award was doled out, were credited with discovering the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule as well as understanding the properties of nucleic acids. However, this win has been overshadowed by the fact that Franklin was not given proper credit for her research, showing the difficulties that many women faced and still face in the world of STEM research.
Brian Kobilka and Robert Lefkowitz
There are around 14 Nobel prizes awarded to people in the sciences who used x-ray crystallography in one form or another. Sadly, this is too many to cover in just one list, so it’s worth making a look to see who the most recent recipient of the award was when using x-ray crystallography. It came in 2012 and was awarded to Brian Kobilka and Robert Lefkowitz for their important discovery of how the inner processes of G protein-coupled receptors worked.
