Caught by Viruses

Book excerpt: The current book attempts to give a glimpse of the scientific life of Michael Rossmann. The book begins with his very interesting and moving autobiography. His enormous energy must have been evident already from early childhood when he and his mother had to emigrate from Nazi Germany to England, via The Netherlands. Starting school with a new language was a challenge that he managed well with the assistance of understanding teachers. Crystallography soon became the tool to explore new worlds, unknown to everybody. With a skill for mathematics, he realized that the transform of a molecular structure in the diffraction pattern could be used for analysis of both symmetry and structural relationships. This method, molecular replacement (MR, also the initials of his name) became one of his great successes of his career. The previous book by him in this series (Selected Papers by Michael G Rossmann with Commentaries) covers his main contributions in this area.With an interest in symmetry, viruses became obvious objects to study. Rossmann attacked these monstrously large molecular assemblies with his unfailing energy and his appetite for real challenges. The amazing variation of molecular arrangements with icosahedral symmetry is truly amazing. This book includes a selection of reports of the structures of some giant viruses. As always, knowing the structure enhances the understanding of function greatly, in the case of viruses the mechanism of infection is a key problem. Rossmann has contributed many central insights in this area.Thus, this book is of interest both as an interesting personal story but also for research into viruses that repeatedly plague all living organisms on the planet, right now in the form of the corona virus pandemic.