The Papers of Sir Aaron Klug

Aaron Klug was born in Zelva in Lithuania, 11 August 1926, the son of Lazar Klug and Bella Klug (née Silin), and was brought up from the age of two in South Africa, mainly in Durban. He was educated at Durban High School; the University of Witwatersrand; the University of Cape Town; and Trinity College, Cambridge. He married Liebe Bobrow in 1948, with whom he had two sons.

In 1953, he joined the staff of Birkbeck College, London, where he worked with Rosalind Franklin on the structure of tobacco mosaic virus, in the laboratory headed by J. D. Bernal. In 1962, he moved with some of his colleagues to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where he continued his research on virus structures and contributed to the development of crystallographic electron microscopy. He was Joint Head of the Division of Structural Studies, 1978-86, and Director of the Laboratory, 1986-96. He was also a Fellow of Peterhouse, 1962-93.

He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1982; was knighted, 1988; was elected and served as President of the Royal Society, 1995-2000; and was appointed to the Order of Merit, 1995. He is an Honorary Fellow of Peterhouse, from 1993.

Papers

The papers were deposited in Churchill Archives Centre by Sir Aaron and Lady Klug, 2010-11.

The collection is closed until catalogued.

Once the collection is open, researchers wishing to publish excerpts from the papers must obtain prior permission from the copyright holders and should seek advice from Archives Centre staff.

Please cite as Churchill Archives Centre, The Papers of Sir Aaron Klug, KLUG

Copies of this finding aid are available for consultation at Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge, the National Register of Archives, London, and on the Janus website http://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk.

This collection level description was prepared by Sophie Bridges, June 2012. Biographical information was obtained from the websites of Who's Who, Wikipedia, and the Nobel Prize.