Alexander Rich (15 November 1924 – 27 April 2015) was an American biologist and biophysicist. He was the William Thompson Sedgwick Professor of Biophysics at MIT (since 1958) and Harvard Medical School. Rich earned an A.B. ( magna cum laude) and an M.D. ( cum laude) from Harvard University. He was a post-doc of Linus Pauling. 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 has over 600 publications to his name. ^[1]

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, ^[2] Rich was the founder of Alkermes and was a director beginning in 1987. Rich was co-chairman of the board of directors of Repligen, a biopharmaceutical company. He also served on the editorial board of Genomics and the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics.

Personal life

Rich spent his early life in Springfield, Massachusetts. ^[3] He grew up in a working-class family and worked in the U.S. Armory while he was in high school. From 1943 to 1946, Rich was in the U.S. Navy. ^[4]

He obtained a bachelor's in biochemical sciences from Harvard University in 1947 and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1949. ^[4] Rich died on 27 April 2015, aged 90. ^[5]

Academic career

At Harvard, Rich studied with John Edsall, who inspired him to pursue an academic career. ^[3] In 1949, he moved to the California Institute of Technology to perform postdoctoral research with Linus Pauling. ^[4] He met James Watson during his time in Pauling's lab. ^[6] He stayed in Pauling's group until 1954. Rich worked as a section chief in physical chemistry at the National Institutes of Health from 1954 to 1958. ^{[3] [4]} He spent a sabbatical at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge (1955-1956), where he worked with Francis Crick and solved the structure of collagen. ^[7] He became a professor at MIT in 1958. He worked diligently at MIT until his death in 2015. ^[4] He still went into lab until two months before his death. ^[4]

Contributions to science

His work played a pivotal role in the discovery of nucleic acid hybridization. ^{[3] [8]}

In 1955, Rich and Crick solved the structure of collagen. ^[7]

In 1963, Rich discovered polysomes: clusters of ribosomes which read one strand of mRNA simultaneously. ^[9]

From 1969 to 1980, he was a biology investigator looking for life on mars with NASA's Viking Mission to Mars. ^[10]

In 1973, Rich's lab determined the structure of tRNA. ^[11]

In 1979, Rich and co-workers at MIT grew a crystal of Z-DNA. ^[12] 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. ^[13] Whenever Z-DNA forms, there must be two junction boxes that allow the flip back to the canonical B-form of DNA.

List of awards and prizes received

• a member of the National Academy of Sciences (appointed 17 April 1978) ^[2]
• a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• a member of the Philosophical Society
• a member of the French Academy of Sciences
• a member of the Institute of Medicine
• a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of U.S. Genomics, Inc.
• President Bill Clinton recognized his outstanding scientific achievements with the National Medal of Science in 1995.
• The Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science (2000)
• 2001 William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement
• 2008 Welch Award in Chemistry: "For outstanding contributions to the understanding of the chemical and biochemical mechanisms in maintaining a living cell". ^[14]

Awards and prizes

• Sigma Xi Proctor Prize, Raleigh, NC (2001)
• Bower Award and Prize, the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA (2000)
• National Medal of Science, Washington, DC (1995)
• Linus Pauling Medal, American Chemical Society, Northwest Sections (1995)
• Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award in Basic Biomedical Research, Brandeis Univ., Waltham, MA (1983)
• James R. Killian Faculty Achievement Award, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1980)
• Presidential Award, New York Academy of Science, New York, NY (1977)
• Theodore van Karmen Award for Viking Mars Mission, Washington, DC (1976)
• Skylab Achievement Award, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC (1974)

Academies

• Foreign Member, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia (1994)
• Honorary Member, Japanese Biochemical Society, Tokyo, Japan (1986)
• Foreign Member, French Academy of Sciences, Paris, France (1984)
• Honorary Doctorate, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1981)
• American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA (1980)
• Pontifical Academy of Sciences (1978)
• National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (1970)
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, DC (1965)
• Fellow, Guggenheim Foundation (1963)
• Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston, MA (1959)
• Fellow, National Research Council, Washington, DC (1949–51).

References

Selected publications

• Brown BA II, Lowenhaupt K, Wilbert CM, Hanlon EB, Rich A (2000). "The Za domain of the editing enzyme dsRNA adenosine deaminase binds left-handed Z-RNA as well as Z-DNA". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 97 (25): 13531–13586. Bibcode: 2000PNAS...9713532B. doi: 10.1073/pnas.240464097. JSTOR  2666404. PMC  17610. PMID  11087828.
• Kim YG, Lowenhaupt K, Maas S, Herbert A, Schwartz T, Rich A (2000). "The Zab domain of the human RNA editing enzyme ADAR1 recognizes Z-DNA when surrounded by B-DNA". J Biol Chem. 275 (35): 26828–26833. doi: 10.1074/jbc.M003477200. PMID  10843996.
• Schwartz T, Rould MA, Lowenhaupt K, Herbert A, Rich A (1999). "Crystal structure of the Za domain of the human editing enzyme ADAR1 bound to left-handed Z-DNA". Science. 284 (5421): 1841–1845. doi: 10.1126/science.284.5421.1841. PMID  10364558.

External links

• Rich Laboratory website
• 2008 Welch Award in Chemistry – Alexander Rich
• Letter from Francis Crick to Alexander Rich (5 December 1974)
• Alexander Rich video: The Discovery of Polynucleotide Hybridization Archived 12 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine
• MIT Article: Alexander Rich, the importance of RNA and the development of nucleic acid hybridization
• A Conversation with Alex Rich (10/03/2007) Archived 21 March 2020 at the Wayback Machine
• Cold Spring Harbor Oral History Interview with Alex Rich