1. William Thomas Astbury FRS was an English physicist and molecular biologist who made pioneering X-ray diffraction studies of biological molecules.
27 Facts About William Astbury
1. 2.
William Astbury studied the structure for DNA in 1937 and made the first step in the elucidation of its structure.
3.
William Astbury's father, William Edwin Astbury, was a potter and provided comfortably for his family.
4.
William Astbury had a younger brother, Norman, with whom he shared a love of music.
5.
William Astbury later returned to Cambridge and finished his last year with a specialization in physics.
6.
William Astbury showed great enthusiasm for his studies and published papers in the journal Classic Crystallography, such as on the structure of tartaric acid.
7.
In 1928, William Astbury was appointed Lecturer in Textile Physics at the University of Leeds.
8.
William Astbury remained at Leeds for the remainder of his career, being appointed Reader in Textile Physics in 1937 and Professor of Biomolecular Structure in 1946.
9.
William Astbury held the chair until his death in 1961.
10.
William Astbury was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1940.
11.
William Astbury is commemorated by the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at Leeds.
12.
At Leeds William Astbury studied the properties of fibrous substances such as keratin and collagen with funding from the textile industry.
13.
William Astbury proposed that the unstretched protein molecules formed a helix ; and the stretching caused the helix to uncoil, forming an extended state.
14.
William Astbury's work moved on to include X-ray studies of many proteins and he was able to deduce from their diffraction patterns that the molecules of these substances were coiled and folded.
15.
William Astbury was able to obtain some external funding and he employed the crystallographer Florence Bell.
16.
William Astbury recognised that the "beginnings of life [were] clearly associated with the interaction of proteins and nucleic acids".
17.
Bell and William Astbury published an X-ray study on DNA in 1938, describing the nucleotides as a "Pile of Pennies".
18.
At a symposium in 1938 at Cold Spring Harbor, William Astbury pointed out that the 0.34 nanometre spacing was the same as amino acids in polypeptide chains.
19.
In 1944, William Astbury was one of the few scientists to recognise the importance of work done by the microbiologist Oswald Avery and his Rockefeller colleagues Maclyn McCarty and Colin Macleod.
20.
William Astbury described Avery's work as 'one of the most remarkable discoveries of our time' and it inspired him with the vision that, in the aftermath of World War 2, he would established a new department at Leeds that would become a national centre to blaze the trail for the new science of molecular biology.
21.
The University Senate allowed him to establish a new department but would not allow him to use the phrase 'molecular biology' in the title due to opposition from senior biologists who felt that, as a physicist, William Astbury was encroaching without invitation on intellectual territory that they rightfully considered to be their own.
22.
William Astbury never published them in a journal or presented them at a scientific meeting.
23.
One explanation is that, although William Astbury recognised the importance of DNA, he did not understand that biological information was carried in the one-dimensional sequence of bases within the molecule but rather, that it resided in subtle and elaborate variations in its three-dimensional structure.
24.
William Astbury ICI was so interested in this idea that they built a pilot production plant in Scotland to a new textile fibre called 'Ardil' that was produced by deliberately altering the molecular structure of the main soluble protein component of monkeynuts to refold it into an insoluble fibre in the hope of using this as a cheap and abundant substitute for wool as a raw material in the textile industry.
25.
William Astbury was known for his unfailing cheerfulness, idealism, imagination and enthusiasm.
26.
William Astbury foresaw correctly the tremendous impact of molecular biology and transmitted his vision to his students, "his euphoric evangelizing zeal transforming laboratory routine into a great adventure".
27.
William Astbury was an excellent writer and lecturer; his works are characterized by remarkable clarity and an easy-going, natural manner.