American biophysicists

Linus Carl Pauling ( PAW-ling; February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics. New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time. For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. For his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. He is one of five people to have won more than one Nobel Prize (the others being Marie Curie, John Bardeen, Frederick Sanger, and Karl Barry Sharpless). Of these, he is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes, and one of two people to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie.Pauling was one of the founders of the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology. His contributions to the theory of the chemical bond include the concept of orbital hybridisation and the first accurate scale of electronegativities of the elements. Pauling also worked on the structures of biological molecules, and showed the importance of the alpha helix and beta sheet in protein secondary structure. Pauling's approach combined methods and results from X-ray crystallography, molecular model building, and quantum chemistry. His discoveries inspired the work of Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins on the structure of DNA, which in turn made it possible for geneticists to crack the DNA code of all organisms.In his later years, he promoted nuclear disarmament, as well as orthomolecular medicine, megavitamin therapy, and dietary supplements, especially ascorbic acid (commonly known as Vitamin C). None of his ideas concerning the medical usefulness of large doses of vitamins have gained much acceptance in the mainstream scientific community. He was married to the American human rights activist Ava Helen Pauling.

Christian Boehmer Anfinsen Jr. (March 26, 1916 – May 14, 1995) was an American biochemist. He shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Stanford Moore and William Howard Stein for work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation (see Anfinsen's dogma).

Robley Cook Williams (October 13, 1908 – January 3, 1995) was an early biophysicist and virologist. He served as the first president of the Biophysical Society.

David Harker (October 19, 1906 – February 27, 1991) was an American medical researcher who according to The New York Times was "a pioneer in the use of X-rays to decipher the structure of critical substances in the life process of cells".He is also well known for Harker–Kasper inequalities (statistical relationships between the phases of structure factors), which he devised in collaboration with John S. Kasper.
Harker made seminal discoveries in the field of chemical crystallography.His lab solved the structure of the pancreatic enzyme ribonuclease A, the third protein structure ever solved by protein crystallography.
Harker was a member of the National Academy of Sciences,
director of the protein structure program at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, director of the Center for Crystallographic Research at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the head of the crystallography division of General Electric. After retirement from Roswell Park in 1976, he joined the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI), then known as the Medical Foundation of Buffalo. He remained there until his death in 1991. His research interests while at HWI turned towards mathematical aspects of crystallography, including color space groups and infinite polyhedra.Harker was awarded the Gregori Aminoff Prize from the Swedish Academy in 1984.