Max Perutz and the Secret of Life (review)

Max Perutz (1914–2002) was, no doubt, one of the most influential scientists in the twentieth century, judging by the accolades and Nobel Prizes awarded to him and members of his research school. He was for many years the head of the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England.

Max Perutz and the Secret of Life is a biography by the science writer Georgina Ferry, written at the request, and with the active collaboration, of Perutz during the last few months of his life. As might be expected of such an "authorized" biography, it is written with a certain gentle sympathy. Still, Ferry does not avoid exposing the dark and sometimes stubborn and vindictive side of her subject.

Max Perutz was born into a middle-class family of assimilated Viennese Jews in 1914; was educated at a prestigious public school, the Theresianum; and entered the University of Vienna in 1932 to study chemistry. In a course on protein chemistry, he was introduced to the work of Frederick Gowland Hopkins of Cambridge, and soon young Perutz set his sights on working with Hopkins. Perutz, however, ended up as a student of J. D. Bernal in the department of physics rather than of Hopkins in the department of biochemistry. This proved to be a felicitous turn of events, because Bernal was the charismatic leader in the burgeoning use of X-ray crystallography to study biological molecules, just the approach the young Perutz was seeking.

The "secret of life" trope is Perutz's later reconstruction of his early motivation to study protein structure, but there is scant support connecting this motivation with Perutz's early decision to study the hemoglobin molecule. Perutz proved to be a talented and dedicated student of the crystallographic approach, and he made key discoveries in deciphering the complex diffraction patterns to provide intelligible molecular structures. With the support of Lawrence Bragg and David Keilin, the Medical Research Council made a permanent home in Cambridge for Perutz by establishing a "Unit on Molecular Structure of Biological Systems" within the Cavendish Laboratory in 1947. The unit, later called the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, initially consisted of Perutz, John Kendrew, and a research assistant, K. K. Moller. A year later, Hugh Huxley joined the unit as a graduate student along with Tony Broad, an electrical engineer. Perutz continued to work on hemoglobin while Kendrew worked on myoglobin, another heme-iron protein. Ferry's account of this early research is both lucid and detailed, and it provides a valuable picture of the bumpy road to what became Perutz's final "textbook" model of hemoglobin.

In addition to the story of the development of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the indignities and injustices of wartime hysteria surrounding émigré scientists such as Perutz, Ferry gives us glimpses into Perutz's family and personal life as well. He had a lifelong passion for skiing and an academic interest in glaciology; indeed, when the protein crystallography was going slowly, he would turn to glaciology for diversion. Overseeing the growth and development of research that straddled the more traditional disciplines of physics, chemistry, and biology was a constant challenge for Perutz, yet he seemed well suited for the challenge. His administrative style was low key, persistent, and fundamentally conservative.

Ferry's description of Perutz the family man, the friend, and the colleague is enlightening. She describes a rather timid person with conventional tastes, loyal to family and friends. Perutz comes across as almost dull, certainly no wit or scintillating conversationalist. His scientific disputes, even with former colleagues, sometimes turned ugly, and he was given to strong and fixed views on scientific matters. (In the interest of full disclosure: this reviewer felt the full brunt of his displeasure upon taking issue with one of his book reviews, an episode that Ferry describes as "a rage of indignation").

This is a useful and balanced account of a remarkable...