"For
crystallographers whose crystals tend to form ice that degrades the diffraction pattern, this revolutionary new technology is extremely promising.
Rosalind Franklin was a shy, sometimes misunderstood figure who joined the staff of researchers at King's college, London, where her pioneering work as a skilled experimentalist and X-ray
crystallographer enabled Watson and Crick to make their breakthrough work.
This process can go through many cycles, and it may take weeks or sometimes months of effort for an expert
crystallographer to produce a refined structure, even with the help of molecular three-dimensional visualization programs.
The British Nobel laureate Dorothy Hodgkin managed to have several children and become a leading X-ray
crystallographer.
It also marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the early death of the
crystallographer Rosalind Franklin, whose now famous X-ray photograph (Number 51) persuaded Watson that he and Crick were within striking distance of their goal.
Fellow protein chemist at CSIRO Health Sciences, Dr Colin Ward, and his colleagues collaborated with Dr Tom Garrett, a
crystallographer now at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, to win a 20-year-long race to determine the exact three-dimensional structure of a protein that could lead to a whole new class of anti-cancer drugs.
Frederick Froebel (1782--1852), the inventor of kindergarten, was a
crystallographer. Almost every aspect of his kindergarten incorporated his interest in the "universal, perfect, alternative language of geometric form" (Brosterman 1997, p.
Shait (G.O.), Dona's presumed alter ego, an architect and would-be painter; the
crystallographer Anacleto Zinghelli; Charlotte Shark, linguist; Barth Bellicapelli, novelist and mafia expert; and an assortment of other delectable characters such as Kate DeCee, King Priapus, Larry and Williamina Fourdays, Slingerlink, Gee Jay, Professor J.
Sessions covered a range of topics and techniques, including basic concepts, software tutorials, data analyses, structure factors, crystallographic databases and--the bane of every new
crystallographer's existence--methods for growing excellent crystals.
The medal is named for a pioneering British metallurgist and
crystallographer who was the first person to use a scanning electron microscope for studies of fracture and who identified the cause of brittle fracture that plagued World War II Liberty Ships.