While neither of these references detail the "development" of protein crystallography, they are excellent stories of its birth:

1.) A book written by Richard Dickerson, "Present at the flood"

2.) A recent review in JMB by Strandberg, Dickerson, and Rossmann: "50 years of Protein Structure Analysis"

We are lucky to have Richard Dickerson as emeritus faculty here at UCLA, because he cares very much for the history of science. Although I do not have a personal relationship with him, I always enjoy the opportunity to hear him talk about the "beginnings." A couple years ago, we had a symposium to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first protein structures with guest speakers including Richard Dickerson, David Davies, Brian Matthews, Michael Rossmann, and Bob Stroud. Surprisingly, I cannot google my way to a recording of the lectures. I'm sure someone got a video or at least an audio recording, so if I can find it I will post a link.

Mike T








----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Pflugrath" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, June 6, 2012 12:31:56 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Fwd: [ccp4bb] Fun Question - Is multiple isomorphous replacement an obsolete technique?


And for more Personal Reflections, one may wish to take a gander at the Rigaku Webinar series with presentations by Brian Matthews and Michael G. Rossmann.


Jim







From: CCP4 bulletin board [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Carter, Charlie [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 2:05 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [ccp4bb] Fwd: [ccp4bb] Fun Question - Is multiple isomorphous replacement an obsolete technique?







Begin forwarded message:



Date: June 6, 2012 3:05:16 PM EDT

To: aaleshin < [log in to unmask] >

Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Fun Question - Is multiple isomorphous replacement an obsolete technique?


There are four such papers in Methods in Enzymology, Vols 368 and 374:

David Blow: How Bijvoet Made the Difference: The Growing Power of Anomalous Scattering V. 374, pp. 3-22

Brian Matthews: Transformations in Structural Biology: A Personal View V. 368 pp. 3-10

Michael Rossmann: Origins V. 368, pp. 11-21

Ulrich W. Arndt: Personal X-ray Reflections V. 368, pp. 21-45

These reminiscences are there entirely because my co-Editor Bob Sweet felt exactly the same way Alex does.

Charlie

On Jun 6, 2012, at 2:12 PM, aaleshin wrote:



I wonder if anyone attempted to write a historic book on development of crystallography. That generation of crystallographers is leaving this world and soon nobody will be able to say how the protein and non-protein structures were solved in those days.





Alex
...

--
Michael C. Thompson

Graduate Student

Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Division

Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry

University of California, Los Angeles

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