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David Mervyn Blow FRS FInstP[6] (27 June 1931 – 8 June 2004)[1][7][8] was an influential British biophysicist. He was best known for the development of X-ray crystallography, a technique used to determine the molecular structures of tens of thousands of biological molecules. This has been extremely important to the pharmaceutical industry.[9]
David Mervyn Blow | |
|---|---|
| Born | 27 June 1931 Birmingham, England |
| Died | 8 June 2004 (aged 72) |
| Education | Kingswood School[1] |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge (BA, PhD)[1] |
| Known for | Haemoglobin X-ray crystallography |
| Spouse |
Mavis Sears (m. 1955) |
| Awards | Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1987) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biophysicist |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology National Institutes of Health Imperial College London MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology |
| Thesis | X-ray analysis of haemoglobin : determination of phase angles by isomorphous substitution (1958) |
| Doctoral advisor | Max Perutz[2] |
| Other academic advisors | Alexander Rich[2] |
| Doctoral students | |
| Other notable students | Thomas A. Steitz Brian Matthews[2] |
Blow was born in Birmingham, England. He was educated at Kingswood School in Bath, Somerset and the University of Cambridge where he won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. His PhD was awarded in 1958 for X-ray analysis of haemoglobin supervised by Max Perutz at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB).[10][11]
Following graduation from Cambridge, Blow spent two years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded by the Fulbright Foundation[1]
In 1954, he met Max Perutz;[12] they began to study a new technique wherein X-rays would be passed through a protein sample at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. This eventually led to the creation of a three-dimensional structure of haemoglobin.[13] Blow was appointed professor of biophysics at Imperial College London in 1977. His doctoral students include Richard Henderson,[3][4] Paul Sigler,[2] and Alice Vrielink.[14]
Awards and honours
Blow was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1972. He was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1987.[1]
Blow married Mavis Sears in 1955, and they had two children, a son Julian and a daughter Elizabeth.[1][8] He died of lung cancer at the age of 72, in Appledore, Torridge (near Bideford), Devon.[7][8]
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