Civic trust ready to honour pioneer of DNA research

A Leeds Civic Trust blue plaque, sponsored by the Thackray Museum, will be unveiled on Astbury's former home on Kirkstall Lane in Headingley, Leeds, in the presence of his family and others on Friday.

Astbury was one of the fathers of a field known as molecular biology and is best known for his ground-breaking use of X-rays to explore the structures of proteins, hair and wool fibres. This work formed the basis for many modern research techniques for diseases such as Alzheimer's.

The legacy of his research lives on to this day through the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds.

The plaque says: "His brilliant research at the University of Leeds deduced the chemical composition of hair and wool fibres by X-ray diffraction. In 1938 his team was the first to predict a molecular structure for DNA, which contains the hereditary instructions present in all living organisms."

Astbury attained a first-class degree in physics from Cambridge. After graduating, he worked alongside Professor William Henry Bragg and soon became an expert in X-ray crystallography, a technique Bragg had invented previously at Leeds University. In 1928 Astbury came to the university as a lecturer and in 1945 he was made its professor of biomolecular structure.

Throughout his career, Astbury took the science of X-ray crystallography to a new level, designing an X-ray camera to look at the structure of proteins in detail.

Professor Nelson, director of the centre that bears his name, said: "Astbury made an enduring contribution to our understanding of the relationship between the structure and the function of biological molecules. He did this by harnessing the power of physics to reveal fundamental insights into biology"

"This interdisciplinary philosophy is kept alive today in the Astbury Centre, where more than 50 researchers from across the University of Leeds collaborate to increase our understanding of life in atomic detail."

An exhibition about William Astbury is currently open at the Thackray Museum, in Beckett Street, Leeds.