THE DAWN OF STRUCTURAL BIOLOGY

KENDREW, J. C. & G. BODO & H. M. DINTZIS & R. G. PARRISH & H. WYCKOFF & D. C. PHILLIPS.

A Three-dimensional Model of the Myoglobin Molecule Obtained By X-ray Analysis.

London, Macmillian and Co., 1958.

Royal8vo. Bound in a green full cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Volume 181, from January to June, 1958, of "Nature" offered. Binding tight and clean externally as well as internally. Pp. 662-666. [Entire volume: CXLII, (2), 1816 pp].

First edition of the important paper in which the first three-dimensional model of a protein was obtained, and which thus laid the foundation for all structural biology. Kendrew was furthermore one of the first to use a computer in analyzing the data produced by x-ray diffraction. For his essential discovery Kendrew was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1962. The discovery is widely regarded as being one the most important in the second half of the 20th century within biology and chemistry.

"The first dramatic but hard-won success of the approach [in understanding molecules], the determination of the three-dimensional structure of a protein called myoglobin, was announced in 1958 [in the present paper]. The findings laid the foundation for the age of structure in biology: [...] the paper was the outcome of a truly Herculean task. (Garwin, A century of Nature: twenty-one discoveries that changed science and the world, 2003, Pp. 87-88).

Order-nr.: 43218