Crystallography

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews David J. Haas, President of the Tecco Corporation. Haas discusses his work as founder of Tempbadge and he recounts his childhood in Buffalo and then Texas. He describes his undergraduate education at the University of Buffalo, where biophysics was beginning to start as a distinct discipline. Haas explains his decision to remain at Buffalo for his graduate research, working under Fred Snell, and he describes his introduction to crystallography from David Harker at the Roswell Park Memorial Institute. He emphasizes the critical support provided by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), both to him as a graduate student and to biophysics generally at the time. Haas discusses his postdoctoral research in cryo-crystallography with David Phillips at the Royal Institute in London, and his brief work beforehand at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, DC. He describes his subsequent work at the Weizmann Institute in Israel where he continued his research in cryo-crystallography, and he describes the scene there during the Six Day War. Haas discusses his work at the Philips Corporation in New York, where he became involved with the X-ray research that would go into security scanners at airports and stadium venues. He explains his decision to go into business for himself with the launch of Temtec for which he created self-expiring visitor badges. At the end of the interview, Haas provides an overview for some of the major advances in biophysics over the course of his career, and he expresses optimism regarding the viability of antiviral therapies for Covid-19 by the end of the year.

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Helen Berman, Professor Emerita at Rutgers, where she remains affiliated with the Proteomic Center and the Institute for Quantitative Medicine. Berman recounts her childhood in Brooklyn, her early adventures in science working in a lab at Barnard College, and she expounds on how Martin Buber’s “I-Thou” concept, which she learned as an undergraduate, continues to shape her thinking today. Berman explains her early interests and talents in crystallography, which she learned from Barbara Low of Columbia. Berman describes her decision to pursue her graduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh, where she worked with George Jeffrey and where she completed her dissertation on carbohydrate crystallography. She explains the sequence of events leading to her career at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia where she researched nucleic acids, and how a personal health scare led her to make a significant personal and career shift. Berman describes her early involvement with the Protein Data Bank at Brookhaven Lab and her vision to harness computational power to grow the PDB into a massive collaborative effort and the rise of structural bioinformatics. In the last portion of the interview, Berman describes her decisions to move to California, and her recent foray into documentaries that focus on human health issues HIV and diabetes, which stem from her broader interest in improving the way that scientists interface with the broader public.

Education, decision to go into physics. Environment at the University of California, Berkeley in early 1950s, especially Charles Kittel's group; Charles Overhauser, et. al. At Berkeley as a graduate student after Charles Kittel's arrival, 1950, Kittel's development of the department (after the loyalty oath); focus on solid state physics, mainly resonance physics (ferromagnetic resonance, cyclotron resonance); University of Chicago and Berkeley relationship. Cohen at Chicago's Institute for the Study of Metals, from 1952. Discussion of the established Institutes for Basic Research: Institute for Nuclear Studies (Enrico Fermi); Institute for the Study of Metals (Cyril Smith, Andy Lawson, Stuart Rice); Low Temperature Laboratory (Earl Long). Contributions in resonance physics, semiconductor physics (Kittel, Cohen, Albert Overhauser, Carson D. Jeffries), superconducting alloys (Bernd T. Matthias and John Hulm); semi-metals, crystal structure, band structure; Fermi surface and Fermi theory of liquids; Clarence Zener anecdote; University of Chicago model of an interdisciplinary research institute for materials science; Lars Onsager's theory (1951) and its stimulating effect; Cohen's encounter with Brian Pippard; General Electric consultant (Walter A. Harrison, free electron model interpretation); James C. Phillip's critical point spectroscopy; Pippard and Eugene I. Blount "missed" the Fermi theory of liquids. Philosophical summarizing on declaring fields "closed," importance of young people in positions of responsibility. Also prominently mentioned are: Luis Alvarez, Chuck Barrett, Robert Dicke, Leopoldo Falicov, Arthur Kip, Lev Landau; and General Electric Company Research Laboratory.