Max Ferdinand Perutz
Perutz, Max Ferdinand (1914-2002), was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist who shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1962 with British molecular biologist John Cowdery Kendrew. Through X-ray techniques, they traced the structure of hemoglobin and myoglobin, two proteins found in blood and muscles. Perutz spent much of his work life on researching hemoglobin, showing in detail how hemoglobin was constructed. Perutz's work helped biologists understand the molecule's role in transporting oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout the bloodstream.
Perutz was born in Vienna, Austria, on May 19, 1914, one of three children of Adele (Gold-schmidt) Perutz and Hugo Perutz. Both parents came from families made wealthy in the textile manufacturing industry. Perutz's parents intended for him to study law and enter the family business, but he became interested in chemistry while attending secondary school at the Vienna Theresianum. This school had been an army officer's academy in the days of the Empress Maria Theresa. In 1932, Perutz entered the University of Vienna to study inorganic chemistry, but he found the subject boring and soon changed to organic chemistry.
After graduating in 1936, Perutz went to England to escape the mounting difficulties resulting from the spread of Nazism. He worked at Cambridge University under physicist John Desmond Bernal at the Cavendish Laboratory.
Through his work in organic chemistry, Perutz learned about X-ray crystallography studies being conducted at Cambridge. Also called X-ray diffraction, the technique was introduced by German physicist Max Theodor Felix von Laue. X rays might be diffracted (bent) by certain crystals such as rock salt. This made it possible to measure wave lengths of X rays and to study the relative position of atoms within a crystal. Max von Laue passed a beam of X rays through a crystal onto a photographic plate, which produced a pattern of spots. This diffraction pattern appeared to differ with various types of crystals. The position and darkness of the spots was interpreted mathematically to show the atomic structure of the crystals.