Jerry Donohue (June 12, 1920 – February 13, 1985) was an American theoretical and physical chemist.
He is best remembered for steering James D. Watson and Francis Crick towards the correct structure of DNA with some crucial information.
Donohue was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin and studied for his first two degrees at Dartmouth College, where he earned his A.B.
He worked on his PhD under Linus Pauling at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), earning his doctorate in 1947.
[1] Throughout his life Donohue specialized in crystal structures and analysis, specifically of molecules relating to biology and hydrogen-bonding.
In 1952, Donohue was given a Guggenheim Foundation grant[2] to study at Cambridge University for 6 months.
He shared an office with Francis Crick and James D. Watson.
Donohue informed Watson that the published structure was just a guess and that the keto structure was more likely, based on a publication of June Broomhead and quantum mechanical calculations.
[3][4] Within a few days, Watson and Crick were able to build their famous model for DNA.
[5] In their famous article by Watson and Crick in Nature that proposed the structure of DNA, the following acknowledgment to Donohue appears: "We are much indebted to Dr. Jerry Donohue for constant advice and criticism, especially on interatomic distances".
[6] After Cambridge, Donohue became Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the University of Southern California (USC) where he continued to specialize in hydrogen-bonding.
He also studied sulfur-containing compounds and began to publish papers more extensively on crystallography and crystal structures.
He retired from his Penn position because of ill-health in 1985, and died that same year from cancer.
His leisure-time interests included sea shells[9] and horticulture.
Radial Distribution Functions of Some Structures of the Polypeptide Chain.
Complete Reduction of Tellurite to Pure Tellurium Metal by Microorganisms.
Conformations and hydrogen bonding in codeine and morphine salts.
X-Ray Diffraction Studies on Metal Deposition in Group D Streptococci.
The Crystal Structure of Adamantane: An Example of a False Minimum in Least Squares.
The Crystal and Molecular Structure of Tetramethylbiphosphine-Bis(monoborane).
Redetermination of thermal motion and interatomic distances in urea.
The unit cell and space group of L-tyrosine.
The Crystal and Molecular Structure of Dimethyl trans, trans-2,5-Dichloromuconate.
The Crystal and Molecular Structure of Dicinnamyl Disulfide.
A refinement of the crystal structure of tetraphenylmethane: three independent redeterminations.
A refinement of the crystal structure of N,N'-diglycyl-L-cystine dihydrate.
Crystal and molecular structure of analgesics, I. Ciramadol hydrobromide, C15H23O2N·HBr.
Molecular structures of menthylS-methyl (S)p-phenyl phosphonothioate and menthyl methyl(R)p-phenylphosphonate.
Revised space-group frequencies for organic compounds.
Carroll, J. Donohue and S. Oreurn, (+)-Hitachimycin: stereochemistry and conformational analysis.