Paul Mead Doty (1920–2011)

Paul Doty was a great man. He made a mighty and beneficent impact in two quite disparate spheres of human endeavour. He prevailed in all that he set his mind to by dint of intellectual dominance, clarity of vision, and sheer force of personality. In science it was Doty more than anyone who brought physical rigour to the study of biological macromolecules when the spotlight shifted from metabolic biochemistry to the bright new discipline of molecular biology. The appearance in 1953 of the startling, if still conjectural, DNA structure, and the promise of protein structures to come gave a heightened purpose to questions of their size, form and behaviour in their natural aqueous milieu; this was the field that Doty bestrode like a Colossus for close on two decades.