Profession: biochemist

Kendrew and Perutz were instrumental in establishing the field of molecular biology, and shared a Nobel prize for their pioneering work on proteins. He met Bernal – influential on his career – in the jungle in Sri Lanka during WWll; he also met Waddington and Pauling during this period. Meeting Luria at a conference led to Watson’s invitation to work in Cambridge, initially as Kendrew’s myoglobin assistant. Weisskopf and Szilard proposed a European Molecular Biology Organisation, whose enthusiastic leader he became (with Jacob a fellow founding member). Monod hand-delivered a paper; Steinbeck was met in Stockholm at the Nobel presentations.