Max Ferdinand Perutz OM CH CBE FRS (19 May 1914 – 6 February 2002)[3] was an Austrian-born British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of haemoglobin and myoglobin.

At Cambridge he founded and chaired (1962–79) The MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), fourteen of whose scientists have won Nobel Prizes.

He took a keen interest in the Junior Members, and was a regular and popular speaker at the Kelvin Club, the college's scientific society.

With his ability to ski, experience in mountaineering since childhood and his knowledge of crystals, Perutz was accepted as a member of a three-man team to study the conversion of snow into ice in Swiss glaciers in the summer of 1938.

[9] On the outbreak of World War II, Perutz was rounded up along with other persons of German or Austrian background, and sent to Newfoundland (on orders from Winston Churchill).

He carried out early experiments on pykrete in a secret location underneath Smithfield Meat Market in the City of London.

[12] Perutz's new unit attracted researchers who realised that the field of molecular biology had great promise; among them were Francis Crick in 1949 and James D. Watson in 1951.

He hoped that the molecule could be made to function as a drug receptor and that it would be possible to inhibit or reverse the genetic errors such as those that occur in sickle cell anaemia.

He demonstrated that the onset of Huntington disease is related to the number of glutamine repeats as they bind to form what he called a "polar zipper".

[15] During the early 1950s, while Watson and Crick were trying to determine the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), they were given by Perutz an unpublished 1952 progress report for the King's College laboratory of Sir John Randall.

This report contained X-ray diffraction images taken by Rosalind Franklin that proved to be crucial in coming to the double-helix structure.

Perutz did this without Franklin's knowledge or permission, and before she had a chance to publish a detailed analysis of the content of her unpublished progress report.

In an effort to clarify this issue, Perutz later published the report, arguing that it included nothing that Franklin had not said in a talk she gave in late 1951, which Watson had attended.

Perutz also added that the report was addressed to an MRC committee created to "establish contact between the different groups of people working for the Council".

Perutz attacked the theories of philosophers Sir Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn and biologist Richard Dawkins in a lecture given at Cambridge on 'Living Molecules' in 1994.

Statements which offend people's religious faith were for Perutz tactless and simply damage the reputation of science, though he did not criticize scientists opposing "demonstrably false" theories such as creationism.

"[18] Within days of the 11 September attacks in 2001, Perutz wrote to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, appealing to him to not respond with military force: "I am alarmed by the American cries for vengeance and concerned that President Bush's retaliation will lead to the death of thousands more innocent people, driving us into a world of escalating terror and counter-terror.