I am a chemist and X-ray crystallographer. My research science reveals the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal and graphite from the patterns X-rays leave on film.
The person outside the work — what they're learning and tinkering with.
In 1947 I joined Jacques Mering's laboratory in Paris, where I learned to apply X-ray diffraction to amorphous, disordered substances such as carbon — the skill my later research relied on.
I was invited to build a five-foot model of tobacco mosaic virus for Expo 58, showing the public the structure my group had found, made from table tennis balls and bicycle handlebar grips.
