Jan Drenth (born 20 February 1925) is a Dutch chemist. He was a professor of structural chemistry at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...

from 1969 to 1990.

Career

Drenth was born in

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

. He obtained his PhD in mathematics and physics under Eelco Wiebenga at the University of Groningen in 1957, with a dissertation titled: ''Een röntgenografisch onderzoek van excelsine, edestine en tabakszaadglobuline''. Drenth subsequently moved to New York, United States, where he became a post-doc and studied

protein crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

under Barbara Low. Drenth then returned to the Netherlands and in 1967 was appointed as

lector Lector is Latin for one who reads, whether aloud or not. In modern languages it takes various forms, as either a development or a loan, such as french: lecteur, en, lector, pl, lektor and russian: лектор. It has various specialized uses. ...

. In 1969 he was appointed as professor of structural chemistry, which he remained until his retirement in 1990. He was elected a member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

in 1973. As of October 2015, Drenth was still attending events at the age of 90.

Works

* ''Principles of Protein X-Ray Crystallography''.

References

1925 births Living people 20th-century Dutch chemists Crystallographers Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Scientists from Groningen (city) University of Groningen alumni University of Groningen faculty {{Netherlands-scientist-stub