The Excitement of Discovery: Selected Papers of Alexander Rich

A Tribute to Alexander Rich

'This book brings back memories of the great Alex Rich, a pioneer in molecular biology. He was friend, a mentor and a colleague who contributed greatly to the understanding of living processes and molecular structures.'

David Baltimore1975 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine

This book is intended for students and general readers who are interested in the structures of biological molecules and history of science. The center of gravity of Alexander Rich's work is on nucleic acids and their structures and their roles in biology, but the breadth of his work is nearly unparalleled. Alex Rich published important early discoveries on the structure and activity of RNA, information transfer (translation) from RNA to protein, the structure of ribosomes with insights into polyribosome functions, the first atomic-resolution structure of nucleic acid base pairings, and the discovery of a hitherto-unknown conformation of DNA. Many of Rich's articles also have a focus on the structure of proteins in general as well as specific proteins and some are concerned with the structure of viruses. Some of Rich's early experimental work is based on scattering of X-rays from fibers but X-ray diffraction from crystals became the dominating technique of the Cold War.

This is a book full of rich history of early days of modern biology and many fundamental discoveries. Alex Rich's main focus throughout his long career was on nucleic acids. His first paper on nucleic acids, was published together with JD Watson. Two years later, Rich reported creating fibers of poly-Uracil and poly-Adenine and studied their structures by diffraction.

Alex Rich's laboratory determined the high resolution crystal structures of the ApU and GpC fragments of double helical RNA from Rich's group is considered a landmark in the detailed understanding of nucleic acid structure.

Contents:

• Foreword
• Introduction by Anders Liljas
• Section Mini-Introduction by Ned Seeman: 8 Reprints Focus on Structures of Nucleic Acids
• Section Mini-Introduction by Helen Berman: 5 Reprints of Collagen Structures and Recollections
• Section Mini-Introduction by Jonathan Warner: 6 Reprints of Discovery of Polyribosomes
• Section Mini-Introduction by Sung-Hou Kim: 24 Reprints of Structures of tRNA and Left-Handed Z-DNA and Complexes
• Section Mini-Introduction by Martin Egli: 16 Reprints of Various Discoveries
• CV and Publication List of Alexander Rich
• 5 Letters from Francis Crick to Alexander Rich in 1956–1957
• 47 Recollections from Alexander Rich's Former Students, Postdocs and Colleagues
• Historical Photo Collections of Alexander Rich

Key Features:

• To wander through Alexander Rich's bibliography is to take a walk through the history of modern biology. Alex Rich rightfully takes a place in the pantheon of molecular biologists: Francis Crick, James Watson, Max Perutz, John Kendrew, Max Delbruck, Sidney Brenner, Jacques Monod, Francois Jacob, André Lwoff. His curriculum vitae and list of publications make for very impressive reading. His scientific contributions extend over eight decades from 1949 to 2011. He worked in the field of molecular biology as it developed from rudimentary attempts to become a major scientific field
• The personal tributes of his former students, postdocs, colleagues whose recollections about Alex Rich significantly enrich this book. It also contains the selected letters from the legendary Francis Crick to Alex Rich in 1956–1957
• This book also includes rarely-seen photos of historical significance with the key actors at the dawn of modern biology, especially molecular and structural biology, as well as photos of Rich's active participation during the Pugwash conference at height of the Cold War