George K. Fraenkel (July 27, 1921 – June 10, 2009) was an American physical chemist, dean of Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and chairman of the chemistry department at Columbia University.
[1][2][3] At the time of his death, he also served as director and treasurer of the Atran Foundation in New York City.
[3] In 1972, Fraenkel received the Harold C. Urey Award of the Gamma Chapter of Phi Lambda Upsilon.
Fraenkel developed instruments to "track the spin of electrons and thereby obtain information on very small structures," according to an obituary in The New York Times.
"We are now determining the structure and function of medically important proteins implicated in Parkinson's disease, how viral proteins insert themselves into cells, medical imaging, memory function and quantum computing," said Jack H. Freed, professor of physical chemistry at Cornell, in reference to developments based on Fraenkel's work.