Living materials and the structural ideal: The development of the protein crystallography community in the 20th century (David Harker)

This dissertation situates the science of protein crystallography within the context of the broader crystallographic community that gave rise to it, focusing on the time period between the 1930s and the 1980s. A fuller understanding of this field is relevant to a number of research areas of current and continuing interest among historians of 20th century science, including exploration of the roots of biotechnology, the relationships between physical and biological science communities, and the effects of the World Wars on scientific practice.; One of the principal aims of the dissertation is to show how protein crystallography grew out of research interests that preceded the conceptualization of molecular biology in the 1960s: William H. Bragg's interest in developing the x-ray camera's usefulness for industrial research into consumer goods, J. D. Bernal's attempts to join x-ray crystallography and biochemistry in the service of a Marxist utopia, and Dorothy Hodgkin's desire to push the methodological frontiers of x-ray crystallography by studying ever more complex molecules. The dissertation also argues that protein crystallographers were better integrated in the mainstream of the x-ray crystallographic community than has been previously appreciated.; The primary case study used here to illustrate this point is the story of how David Harker, a little-known pioneer of theoretical x-ray crystallography, contributed to the solution of the structure of myoglobin protein in the 1950s. The careers of other historically significant crystallographers of the mid-20th century, such as William Astbury, Lawrence Bragg, John Kendrew, Linus Pauling, Max Perutz, and Dorothy Wrinch, are discussed as they relate to the above arguments.; The dissertation concludes with a survey of the development of the protein crystallography community from the 1960s to the 1980s. This discussion hinges upon the development of the Protein Data Bank, a center for the public exchange of protein structure information and a focus of debate about the responsibilities of individual crystallographers to protect their professional community.