Everything about John Kendrew totally explained
Sir John Cowdery Kendrew (
March 24,
1917 –
August 23,
1997) was an
English biochemist and
crystallographer who shared the 1962
Nobel Prize in Chemistry with
Max Perutz; their group in the
Cavendish Laboratory investigated the structure of
heme-containing
proteins.
Early life
He was born in
Oxford, son of
Wilford George Kendrew,
reader in
climatology in the
University of Oxford and
Evelyn May Graham Sandburg, art historian. He was educated at the
Dragon School in Oxford, as well as
Clifton College in
Bristol, 1930-1936. He attended
Trinity College,
Cambridge in 1936, as a Major Scholar, graduating in chemistry in 1939. He spent the early months of
World War II doing research on reaction kinetics, and then became a member of the Air Ministry Research Establishment, working on
radar. In 1940 he became engaged in operational research at the
Royal Air Force headquarters, holding the honorary rank of Wing Commander R.A.F.
During the war years, he became increasingly interested in biochemical problems, and decided to work on the structure of proteins.
Crystallography
In 1945 he approached Dr.
Max Perutz in the
Cavendish Laboratory in
Cambridge.
Joseph Barcroft, a respiratory physiologist, suggested he might make a comparative protein crystallographic study of adult and fetal sheep
hemoglobin, and he started that work.
In 1947 he became a Fellow of Peterhouse, and
MRC [theMedical Research Council] agreed to create a research unit for the study of the molecular structure of biological systems, under the direction of Sir
Lawrence Bragg. In 1954 he became a Reader at the
Davy-Faraday Laboratory of the
Royal Institution in
London.
Crystal structure of myoglobin
Kendrew shared the 1962
Nobel Prize for
chemistry with
Max Perutz for determining the first atomic structures of
proteins using
X-ray crystallography. Their work was done at what is now the
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in
Cambridge. Kendrew determined the structure of the protein
myoglobin, which stores oxygen in
muscle cells.
In 1947 the
MRC agreed to make a research unit for the Study of the Molecular Structure of Biological Systems. The original studies were on the structure of sheep
hemoglobin, but when this work had progressed as far as was possible using the resources then available, Kendrew embarked on the study of
myoglobin, a molecule only a quarter the size of the hemoglobin molecule. His initial source of raw material was
horse heart, but the crystals thus obtained were too small for X-ray analysis. Kendrew realized that the oxygen-conserving tissue of
diving mammals could offer a better prospect, and a chance encounter led to his acquiring a large chunk of
whale meat from Peru. Whale myoglobin did give large crystals with clean X-ray diffraction patterns. However, the problem still remained insurmountable, until in 1953
Max Perutz discovered that the
phase problem in analysis of the diffraction patterns could be solved by
multiple isomorphous replacement — comparison of patterns from several crystals; one from the native protein, and others that had been soaked in solutions of heavy metals and had metal ions introduced in different well-defined positions. An electron density map at 6
angstrom (0.6
nanometre) resolution was obtained by 1957, and by 1959 an atomic model could be built at 2 angstrom (0.2 nm) resolution.
Later career
In 1963 Kendrew became one of the founders of the
European Molecular Biology Organization; as well, he founded and was for many years editor-in-chief of the
Journal of Molecular Biology. He became Fellow of the
American Society of Biological Chemists in 1967 and honorary member of the
International Academy of Science. In 1974 he succeeded in persuading governments to establish the
European Molecular Biology Laboratory in
Heidelberg and became its first director. From 1974 to 1979 he was a Trustee of the
British Museum, and from 1974 to 1988 he was successively Secretary General, Vice-President, and President of the
International Council of Scientific Unions.
After his retirement from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Kendrew became President of St. John's College, Oxford, a post he held from 1981-1987. From 1974-79 he was a Trustee of the British Museum and from 1974 to 1988 he was successively Secretary General, Vice-President and President of the International Council of Scientific Unions. Kendrew's entry in Who's Who lists ten other important National and International committees on which he served as either member or chairman.
Further Information
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