Richard Crowther has made numerous contributions to the theory and practice of biological structure determination. These include many important advances in the methodology of image reconstruction from electron micrographs, and he has also carried out numerous analyses of specific biological structures and systems as diverse as icosahedral viruses and the paired helical filaments of Alzheimer’s disease.
His early work on non-crystallographic symmetry in protein crystallography led to lasting practical methods for the calculation of rotation and translation functions. Subsequently, he pioneered the analysis of electron microscope images of icosahedral viruses, cell walls, coated vesicles and clathrin cages, bacteriophage baseplates, the paired helical filaments of Alzheimer’s disease and thin sections of intact muscle cells. Each of these studies has produced new and valuable information on the structure of the system. The studies have all set rigorous standards of structure analysis and contain unique and original ideas which have added to the armoury of reliable techniques for studying different kinds of systems and specimens.
Subject groups
- Biochemistry and molecular cell biology
Biophysics and structural biology
