Max Perutz And The Secret Of Life

Description

Few scientists have thought more deeply about their calling and its impact on humanity than Max Perutz (1914-2002). Born in Vienna, Jewish by descent, lapsed Catholic by religion, Max came to Cambridge in 1936, to join the lab of the legendary Communist thinker J.D. Bernal. In 1940 he was interned and deported to Canada as an enemy alien, only to be brought back and set to work on a bizarre top secret war project.Seven years later he founded the small research group in which Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the structure of DNA. Max Perutz himself explored the protein haemoglobin and his work, which won him a shared Nobel Prize in 1962, launched a new era of medicine, heralding today's astonishing advances in the genetic basis of disease.Max Perutz's story, wonderfully told by Georgina Ferry, brims with life; it has the zest of an adventure novel and is full of extraordinary characters. Max was demanding, passionate and driven but also humorous, compassionate and loving. Georgina Ferry's absorbing biography is a marvellous tribute to a great scientist.

GEORGINA FERRY is a science writer and broadcaster and the author of Dorothy Hodgkin- A Life which was short-listed for both the Duff Cooper Prize and the March Biography Award.

Engrossing... At a time when British citizenship is being debated, we would do well to remember the case of Max Perutz along with the many other immigrants who transfused the intellectual life-blood of this country in the postwar years -- Giles Foden * Guardian * Ferry has captured her subject's genial, uncompetitive personality well -- Brenda Maddox * Literary Review * I loved it. As a scientist, reading this well-written biography of a great researcher was a treat.... Max Perutz was a great man and a great researcher, and here he has received the biography he deserves * Sunday Telegraph * Elegant, adroit biography...delightful * Observer * Georgina Ferry's biography captures not only the scientific advances made by Perutz but also his curious personal qualities * Economist *