Alex Rich
| Alexander Rich | |
|---|---|
| Born |
November 15, 1924 Hartford, Connecticut, USA |
| Died | April 27, 2015 (aged 90) Boston, Massachusetts, USA |
| Residence | Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA |
| Nationality | USA |
| Alma mater | Harvard University, USA |
| Known for | discoverer of polysomes and Z-DNA |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biophysics |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Influences | Francis Crick |
Alexander Rich (November 15, 1924 – April 27, 2015) was an American biologist and biophysicist. He was the William Thompson Sedgwick Professor of Biophysics at MIT (since 1958) and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Rich earned both an A.B. (magna cum laude) and an M.D. (cum laude) from Harvard University. He was a post-doc of Linus Pauling along with James Watson. During this time he was a member of the RNA Tie Club, a social and discussion group which attacked the question of how DNA encodes proteins. He had over 600 publications to his name.
Rich was married to Jane King and is survived by four children: Benjamin, Josiah, Rebecca, and Jessica Rich Sturley.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Rich was the founder of Alkermes and was a director beginning in 1987. Dr. Rich was Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors of Repligen Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company. He was also a member of the Board of Directors for Profectus BioSciences, Inc. He also served on the editorial board of Genomics and the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics.
In 1963, Rich discovered polysomes: clusters of ribosomes which read one strand of mRNA simultaneously.
In 1979, Rich and co-workers at MIT grew a crystal of Z-DNA. This was the first crystal structure of any form of DNA. After 26 years of attempts, Rich et al. finally crystallised the junction box of B- and Z-DNA. Their results were published in an October 2005 Nature journal. Whenever Z-DNA forms, there must be two junction boxes that allow the flip back to the canonical B-form of DNA. Rich died on April 27, 2015, aged 90.
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