INTERNATIONAL APPRECIATION OF X-RAY CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
Jindřich Hašek
Institute of Biotechnology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic,Vídeňská 1083, Praha 4;
Krystalografická společnost, Heyrovského nám.2, Praha 6, www.xray.cz
The General Assembly of the United States greatly appreciated the contribution of crystallography to development of the mankind at its 121st Plenary Meeting. In the Resolution 66/284 adopted on July 3, 2012, the General Assembly proclaimed that the scientific field of crystallography substantially changed the quality of life of the whole mankind in the last century and still has a tremendous potential for future generations. It proclaimed the year 2014 as the Year of crystallography (IYCr) and asked the member states to support further development of this fascination science.
The International Union for Crystallography (IUCr) as a member of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) was invited to organize actions to support the related activities in 2014 (http://www.iycr2014.org). Czechoslovakia was in 1948 one of the five founding members of the IUCr. Therefore the Czech and Slovak Crystallographic Association and the Czech and Slovak National Committees of the IUCr take the responsibility to organize the actions in our country (http://www.ray.cz).
One of the main reasons for the proclamation of the International Year of Crystallography was an unusually high number of Nobel prices in crystallography. The IUPAC Commission recognized 23 Nobel prices as prices uniquely related to crystallography. The commission for Nobel prices was first established by the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1901. The first price in the category physics was awarded to W.C.Röntgen. In the next 113 years, 29 Nobel prices were closely related to crystallography.
My search through the history of Nobel
prices identified 11prices awarded directly for the Development of the Diffraction
Methods and development of necessary instrumentation, other 7
prices were closely related to the Applications of Diffraction Methods in
Chemistry, and 11 Nobel prices were for Applications of Diffraction
Methods in Structure Biology.
The results of the search are summarized in Table 1. The Table 2 shows the frequencies of Nobel prices related to crystallography summarized each twenty years since 1901. The 20 years rates of Nobel prices plotted in Figure 1 show a great development of diffraction methods in the first half of 20 century and the new revival in the last 40 years. The methodical development induced continuous not ending sequence of new discoveries in chemistry and biological sciences. The frequency of all Nobel prices related to crystallography (full black line) still grows and nowadays one can generalize that new Nobel prices related to crystallography can be expected each two or three years. This is the rationale of the message contained in the Resolution of the General Assembly, that crystallography has still a high potential for future generation of young scientists and better life of mankind.
The contribution gives also a short review of the 54 years of Macromolecular Crystallography, shows backgrounds of several studies awarded by Nobel price, and gives some estimates of potential fields where the next Nobel prices might be expected.
The work was supported by the project P302/11/0855 of the Czech Science Foundation, BIOCEV CZ.1.05/1.1.00/02.0109 from the ERDF and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic CZ.1.07/2.3.00/30.0029.
Fig.1. Plots of the 20 years frequencies of Nobel prices related to crystallography. The last point of the “Total frequency line” was linearly extrapolated from 13 years average to the 20 years average.
Table 1. List of Nobel prices closely related to
crystallography sorted by the year of approval
2013 Chemistry M. Karplus, M.
Levitt and A. Warshel DM Appl.in Chemistry
Development
of multi-scale models for complex chemical systems
2012 Chemistry R. J. Lefkowitz and B. K. Kobilka DM Appl.in St.Biology
Studies
of G-protein-coupled receptors
2011 Chemistry D. Shechtman Diffraction methods
Discovery of
quasicrystals
2010 Physics A.
Geim and K. Novoselov DM Appl.in Chemistry
Experiments
regarding the two-dimensional material grapheme
2009 Chemistry V. Ramakrishnan, T.A. Steitz and A. E.Yonath DM Appl.in St.Biology
Studies
of the structure and function of the ribosome
2006 Chemistry R. D. Kornberg DM Appl.in St.Biology
Studies
of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription
2003 Chemistry P. Agre and R. MacKinnon DM Appl.in St.Biology
Discoveries
concerning channels in cell membranes
1997 Chemistry P. D. Boyer, J. E. Walker and J. C. Skou DM Appl.in St.Biology
Elucidation
of the enzymatic mechanism of ATP synthesis
and of ion-transporting enzyme
1996 Chemistry R.Curl, H. Kroto
and R. Smalley DM Appl.in Chemistry
Discovery
of the fullerene form of carbon
1994 Physics C.
Shull and N. Brockhouse Diffraction
methods
Neutron
diffraction
1992
Physics G. Charpak Diffraction
methods
Discovery of
the multi wire proportional chamber
1991 Physics P.-G. de Gennes DM Appl.in Chemistry
Methods
of discovering order in simple systems can be applied to polymers and liquid
crystals
1988 Chemistry J. Deisenhofer, R. Huber and H. Michel DM Appl.in St.Biology
Determination
of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre
1985 Chemistry H. Hauptman and J. Karle Diffraction
methods
Development of direct methods for the
determination of crystal structures
1982 Chemistry A. Klug DM Appl.in St.Biology
Development
of crystallographic electron microscopy and the structure of NA-protein
complexes
1976 Chemistry W. N. Lipscomb DM Appl.in Chemistry
Structure
of boranes
1972 Chemistry C. B. Anfinsen DM Appl.in St.Biology
Folding
of protein chains
1964 Chemistry D. Hodgkin DM Appl.in St.Biology
Structure
of many biochemical substances including Vitamin B12
1962 Physiology or Medicine F. Crick, J. Watson and M. Wilkins DM
Appl.in St.Biology
Helical
structure of DNA
1962 Chemistry J. C. Kendrew and M. Perutz DM Appl.in St.Biology
Studies of the structures of globular proteins
1954 Chemistry L. C. Pauling DM Appl.in Chemistry
Nature of
chemical bond and structure elucidation of complex substances
1946 Chemistry J. B. Sumner DM Appl.in St.Biology
Discover,
that enzymes can be crystallized
1937 Physics C.
J. Davisson and G. Thompson Diffraction
methods
Experimental
discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals
1936 Chemistry P. J. W. Debye Diffraction methods
Investigations
on dipole moments and X-ray and electron diffraction in gases
1929 Physics L.-V. de Broglie Diffraction
methods
The wave
nature of the electron
1917 Physics C.
G. Barkla Diffraction
methods
Discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation by some elements
1915 Physics W.
H. Bragg and W. L. Bragg Diffraction methods
The use of X-rays to determine crystal structure
1914 Physics M.
Von Laue Diffraction
methods
Diffraction
of X-rays by crystals
1901 Physics W. C. Röntgen Diffraction
methods
Discovery of X-rays
Table 2. The 20 years frequencies of Nobel prices
related to crystallography. The last point of the “Total frequency line” was
extrapolated from the 13 years average to the 20 years average.
|
|
Year |
Diffraction |
Chemistry |
Biology |
Total |
|
|
|
1900-1920 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
4 |
|
|
|
1920-1940 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
|
|
|
1940-1960 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
|
|
|
1960-1980 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
|
|
|
1980-2000 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
8 |
|
|
|
2000-2013 |
1 |
2 |
4 |
7 |
|
|
|
Total |
11 |
7 |
11 |
29 |
|