The 1960s: The Nuclear-Free Zone, Oppression in Argentina and Molecules in Mexico

[Part 2 of 5] In January 1962, Linus Pauling visited Chile in order to give an address at the Seventh International Summer School at the University of Concepción, and also to accept a certificate of honorary membership in the Chilean Society of Chemistry, one of many such honorary memberships that he received during his lifetime. [...]

Chris Hables Gray, Resident Scholar

Dr. Chris Hables Gray, professor at the Union Institute and University and lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is the fourth individual this year to complete a term as Resident Scholar in the Special Collections & Archives Research Center.  Dr. Gray is a self-described “anarchist, feminist, post-modernist” who has written widely on a [...]

On the Formation of Antibodies

By the 1940s, Linus Pauling’s research interests had expanded to include many subjects generally outside the purview of a typical chemist. In particular, immunology was rapidly becoming a fascination of his – one that would come to devour more and more of his time both in and out of the lab. For Pauling, much of [...]

An Era of Discovery in Protein Structure

[The Paulings in England: Part 4 of 5] Though metals were consuming a good portion of his time during his fellowship at Oxford, Linus Pauling’s other projects never strayed far from his thoughts.  High on the list were the mysteries of proteins, whose structures and functions were slowly starting to be unraveled. Pauling’s interest in [...]

A Theory of the Denaturation of Proteins

In 1935, as a result of being prompted toward the biological sciences in order to keep his Rockefeller Foundation funding, Linus Pauling began his research on proteins. Hemoglobin, the oxygen-binding agent in blood, was his first target; but as he became more aware of the complex nature and diversity of proteins, he began contemplating broader [...]

Pauling’s First Hemoglobin Publications: Understanding Oxygen Binding

“You know, hemoglobin is a wonderful substance. I like it. It’s a red substance that brings color into the cheeks of girls, and in the course of my hemoglobin investigation I look about a good bit to appreciate it.” – Linus Pauling, March 30, 1966 Seventy-five years ago, in 1935, Linus Pauling began publishing his [...]

Remembering Harvey Itano

“The discovery by Dr. Itano of the abnormal human hemoglobins has thrown much light on the problem of the nature of the hereditary hemolytic anemias, and has changed these diseases from the status of poorly understood and poorly characterized diseases into that of well understood and well characterized diseases.” -Linus Pauling, 1955. We were saddened [...]

Mastering Genetics: Pauling and Eugenics

“I have suggested that the time might come in the future when information about heterozygosity in such serious genes as the sickle cell anemia gene would be tattooed on the forehead of the carriers, so that young men and women would at once be warned not to fall in love with each other.” -Linus Pauling, [...]

The Theory of the Molecular Evolutionary Clock

“It thus appears possible that there would be no evolution without molecular disease.” -Linus Pauling. “Molecular Disease, Evolution and Genic Heterogeneity,” 1962. In the early 1960s, Linus Pauling and Emile Zuckerkandl, a French postdoctoral fellow who had arrived at Caltech in 1959, began researching the characteristics of hemoglobin extracted from a number of different species [...]

Pauling on the Homefront: The Development of Oxypolygelatin, Part 2

“Science cannot be stopped. Man will gather knowledge no matter what the consequences — and we cannot predict what they will be. Science will go on — whether we are pessimistic, or are optimistic, as I am. I know that great, interesting, and valuable discoveries can be made and will be made…But I know also [...]