Dissertation Research: Early Theories of Virus Structure

20世纪50年代中期，在完成DNA结构后，詹姆斯·沃森和弗朗西斯·克里克开始考虑小病毒的结构。在很大程度上基于理论的基础上，他们推测小型病毒可能是由以对称方式排列的单个亚基的多个副本构建而成的，很像晶体结构。与此同时，Donald Caspar和Aaron Klug开始使用x射线衍射来探测病毒的亚结构。他们的数据支持沃森-克里克假说，但显微镜学家罗伯特·霍姆（Robert Home）和医学病毒学家彼得·怀尔迪（Peter Wildy）等人拍摄的早期病毒电子显微照片表明，病毒结构中的亚基可能比克里克-沃森假说所允许的要多。卡斯帕和克鲁格开始寻找一种病毒结构理论，以使克里克和沃森的理论考虑与经验观察相协调。他们的灵感来自巴克明斯特·富勒的建筑和他的测地线圆顶结构。他们的理论非常粗略地提出，“球形”病毒的构造就像微型的测地线圆顶。这一理论仍然被认为可以解释大多数球形病毒的结构，尽管后来发现了一些例外。亚伦·克鲁格（Aaron Klug）获得1983年诺贝尔奖，部分原因是他对病毒结构的研究。本论文研究项目的作者计划撰写科学史上这一有趣事件的第一部详细历史。这项NSF资助将允许他前往英国剑桥，在Aaron Klug的实验室呆一个月，采访他，对他和他的合作者为说明他的想法而建立的许多物理模型进行分类，检查他在那个时期的笔记，并采访Robert Home，一些合作者，以及Peter Wildy的妻子Jo Wildy。（不幸的是，彼得·怀尔迪去世了。）游客还可以参观巴克明斯特·富勒研究所档案馆，那里保存着巴克明斯特·富勒与克鲁格和卡斯帕之间的信件，还有加州理工学院档案馆。唐纳德·卡斯帕（Donald Caspar）和詹姆斯·沃森（James Watson）分析病毒结构的第一年（1954年）是在加州理工学院度过的。最后，一旦详细的历史更加完整，它将允许唐纳德·卡斯帕再次接受采访，并分析他的研究笔记。

In the mid 1950s, after completing the DNA structure, James Watson and Francis Crick considered the structure of small viruses. On largely theoretical grounds, they conjectured that small viruses might be built from multiple copies of a single subunit arranged in a symmetrical way, much like a crystalline structure. At the same time, Donald Caspar and Aaron Klug began using x-ray diffraction to probe viral substructure. Their data supported the Watson-Crick hypothesis, but early electron micrographs of viruses taken by the microscopist, Robert Home, and the medical virologist, Peter Wildy, among others, indicated that there might be more subunits in the structure than the Crick-Watson hypothesis allowed. Caspar and Klug began to search for a theory of virus structure which would reconcile the theoretical considerations of Crick and Watson with the empirical observations. They were inspired by the architecture of Buckminster Fuller and his geodesic dome structures. Very roughly, their theory proposed that "spherical" viruses were constructed like miniature geodesic domes. This theory is still thought to explain the structure of the majority of spherical viruses, although some exceptions were subsequently discovered. Aaron Klug received the 1983 Nobel prize, in part for his work on viral structure. The author of this dissertation research project plans to write the first detailed history of this interesting episode in the history of science. This NSF grant will allow him to travel to Cambridge UK, to spend a month in Aaron Klug's laboratory, to interview him, catalog the many physical models he and his collaborators built to illustrate his ideas, examine his notes from the period, and also to interview Robert Home, a number of collaborators, and Jo Wildy, the wife of Peter Wildy. (Tragically, Peter Wildy is deceased.) It will also allow a trip to the Buckminster Fuller Institute Archive, where among other things, the correspondence between Buckminster Fuller and Klug and Caspar is preserved, and the California Institute of Technology Archive. Donald Caspar and James Watson spent the first year (1954) of their analysis of virus structure at Caltech. And finally, it will allow Donald Caspar to be re-interviewed and his research notes analyzed once the detailed history is more complete.