In The News

Mathematician who won a Nobel Prize passes away

Mathematician who won a Nobel Prize passes away

THE mathematician Herbert A. Hauptman, whose work had a major impact on the way most modern drugs are developed, has passed away in the United States. He was 94.

Dr. Hauptman shared the 1985 Nobel Prize for chemistry with Jerome Karle.

Together they had developed a revolutionary method for determining the structure of molecules.

Working with X-ray crystallography, Hauptman and Karle came up with equations that allowed for the interpretation of the light patterns on X-ray film, which in turn pinpointed the location of individual atoms.

Their work enabled crystallographers across the world to begin studying thousands of molecules. With this clearer picture of the structure of hormones and other biological molecules, researchers had a better understanding of the chemistry of the body and of drugs used to treat a number of illnesses.

All of this has had a far reaching impact on the development of pharmaceuticals over the past 30 years.

 

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