Hans Charles Freeman (1929–2008): A scientific journey from dipole moments to protein crystallography

Hans Freeman began his scientific career as an undergraduate student focusing on physical organic chemistry. During the studies for his PhD he had the opportunity to spend some time at the California Institute of Technology. This was a career-changing experience for Hans, who returned to Australia determined to use crystallographic techniques to address biological problems. From that point there was a natural progression to metal complexes of amino acids and peptides and from there to metallo-proteins. The highlight was the solution of the structure of the ‘blue’ or ‘type 1’ copper protein, plastocyanin, in 1977. This article describes Hans Freeman's scientific career with some highlights on the ‘road to plastocyanin’.

A brief history of the scientific career of Hans Charles Freeman.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide