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Frederic Middlebrook Richards (August 19, 1925 – January 11, 2009), commonly referred to as Fred Richards, was an American biochemist and biophysicist known for solving the pioneering crystal structure of the ribonuclease S enzyme in 1967 and for defining the concept of solvent-accessible surface. He contributed many key experimental and theoretical results and developed new methods, garnering over 20,000 journal citations in several quite distinct research areas. In addition to the protein crystallography and biochemistry of ribonuclease S, these included solvent accessibility and internal packing of proteins, the first side-chain rotamer library, high-pressure crystallography, new types of chemical tags such as biotin/avidin, the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) chemical shift index, and structural and biophysical characterization of the effects of mutations. Richards spent his entire academic research career at Yale University, where he became Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry in the department that he created and chaired, "one of the major centers in the world for the study of biophysics and structural biology". He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences USA and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received many other scientific awards. He served as head of the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research and was elected as president both of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and of the Biophysical Society. ==Personal biography== Richards was born on August 19, 1925 in New York City to George H. Richards and Marianna Middlebrook Richards. Both parents were from old New England families who had settled in Fairfield and New London, Connecticut in the 1600s. The family usually spent summers in Connecticut, giving Richards an early affinity for the area which continued through his career at Yale University.〔 He had two older sisters, Marianna and Sarah. Marianna became a biochemist, and was a significant role model for Fred, who delighted in the smells and explosions produced by chemistry sets in that era. He attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy, and later recalled that "the excellent science department even permitted certain students the unsupervised run of the laboratories outside of class hours. This attitude played a strong role... in cementing our commitment to scientific careers."〔 He learned glassblowing and electronics there, and tried to measure the universal gravitational constant using 100-pound cannonballs.〔 With strong science interests, Richards thwarted his family's expectations by choosing MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) rather than Yale for college in 1943, majoring in chemistry. His undergraduate time was interrupted by two years in the army, which he described as "uneventful".〔 He then joined the Biochemistry department at Harvard Medical School and the lab of Barbara Low. She had worked with Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin to solve the x-ray crystal structure of penicillin, and was later active in protein crystallography. The phase problem had not yet been solved to allow determination of protein structure, so his Ph.D. thesis (completed in 1952) studied the density and solvent content in crystals to help determine very accurate molecular weights for proteins. In 1954 he went to the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen to do postdoctoral research with Kaj Linderstrøm-Lang, where he started his classic work on the ribonuclease enzyme.〔 He also absorbed the scientific and mentorship style of Lang, who Richards called "a delightful individual, full of fun and jokes as well as science" exemplifying "simple, inexpensive, ingenious, and insightful experiments".〔 In 1955 Richards joined the faculty at Yale University, where he stayed for the rest of his career. Richards was an avid and enthusiastic sailor. In addition to sailing on Long Island Sound, he voyaged north along the Canadian coast, south to Bermuda, and even across the Atlantic several times with a small crew of family and friends.〔 He and his wife had sailboats (Hekla 1 and 2) and an outboard-motor utility boat known as "Sally's Baage"〔 (the spelling presumably a comment on her Maine accent), which he had built himself.〔 Chris Anfinsen, Richards's friend and his colleague as editors of Advances in Protein Chemistry〔 and who recommended the Carlsberg Lab to him,〔 was also an avid sailor, and they sometimes joined forces.〔 Wendell Lim wrote that, "a dedicated sailor since childhood, Fred almost always took a month off each summer to captain a major sailing excursion, returning to lab afterwards refreshed and ready to work. His sailing adventures included several transatlantic voyages. He was also an avid ice hockey player."〔 Richards lived in Guilford, Connecticut, a coastal town about 10 miles east of New Haven, situated between the Metacomet Ridge and Long Island Sound. Fred was married twice, to Heidi Clark Richards, daughter of biochemist Hans Clarke,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Frederic M. Richards )〕〔 and in 1959 to Sarah (Sally) Wheatland Richards, a marine biologist.〔 He had three children – Sarah, Ruth, and George – and four grandchildren.〔 His daughter Sarah described him as "a lifelong scientist and sailor.... His main loves were his scientific work which he finished at Yale University, sailing, working in his shop, and helping in the community."〔 Fred and Sally were a major presence in local land conservation efforts, both on committees and in working projects out on the land and water.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Sally Richards Remembered )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=An Incomparable Couple )〕 He donated a 41-acre shoreline property to the Yale Peabody Museum Natural Areas, which they described as "one of the few natural forest areas left in the state." The property now has long-term protection for use in biological and geological research.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Yale Peabody Museum Natural areas: Richards property )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Frederic M. Richards」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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