The award of medals by the President, Sir Andrew Huxley, O.M., at the Anniversary Meeting, 30 November 1985

The Copley Medal is awarded to Dr A. Klug, F. R. S., in recognition of his outstanding contributions to our understanding of complex biological structures and the methods used for determining them. Together with D. Kaspar, Klug developed a theory that predicted the arrangement of sub-units in the protein shells of spherical viruses. This theory brought order and understanding into a confused field ; nearly all the observed structures of small spherical viruses, many of them elucidated by Klug and his collaborators, are consistent with it. After more than 20 years’ work on tobacco mosaic virus Klug and his colleagues solved the structure of its coat protein in atomic detail. They also elucidated the mechanisms by which the helical virus particle assembles itself from its RNA and its 2130 protein sub-units. Recently his group succeeded in crystallizing chromatin, and solved its structure at a resolution sufficient to see the double-helical DNA coiled around the spool of histone. Many of Klug’s successes were made possible by his introduction of Fourier image reconstruction methods into electron microscopy. Klug’s work is characterized by deep insight into the physics of diffraction and image formation and the intricate geometry of living matter.