David Harker (October 19, 1906 – February 27, 1991) was an American medical researcher who according to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' was "a pioneer in the use of X-rays to decipher the structure of critical substances in the life process of cells".New York Times:Obituaries:Dr. David Harker, 84, a Pioneer in Use of X-Rays in Cell Research, By WALTER SULLIVAN, Published: March 2, 1991
/ref>
/ref> He is also well known for Harker–Kasper inequalities (statistical relationships between the phases of

structure factor In condensed matter physics and crystallography, the static structure factor (or structure factor for short) is a mathematical description of how a material scatters incident radiation. The structure factor is a critical tool in the interpretation ...

s), which he devised in collaboration with John S. Kasper. Harker made seminal discoveries in the field of chemical crystallography. His lab solved the structure of the pancreatic enzyme

ribonuclease A Pancreatic ribonuclease family (, ''RNase'', ''RNase I'', ''RNase A'', ''pancreatic RNase'', ''ribonuclease I'', ''endoribonuclease I'', ''ribonucleic phosphatase'', ''alkaline ribonuclease'', ''ribonuclease'', ''gene S glycoproteins'', ''Ceratit ...

, the third protein structure ever solved by protein crystallography. Harker was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, director of the protein structure program at the

Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn The New York University Tandon School of Engineering (commonly referred to as Tandon) is the engineering and applied sciences school of New York University. Tandon is the second oldest private engineering and technology school in the United Sta ...

, director of the Center for Crystallographic Research at

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is a cancer research and treatment center located in Buffalo, New York. Founded by surgeon Roswell Park in 1898, the center was the first in the United States to specifically focus on cancer research. The ...

, and the head of the crystallography division of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable en ...

.New York Times:NEWS OF PEOPLE IN THE BUSINESS WORLD, January 3, 1949
/ref> After retirement from Roswell Park in 1976, he joined the

Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute The Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI) is an independent, not-for-profit, biomedical research facility located in the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Its focus is on structural biology with a strong history in methods development ...

(HWI), then known as the Medical Foundation of Buffalo. He remained there until his death in 1991. His research interests while at HWI turned towards mathematical aspects of crystallography, including color space groups and infinite

polyhedra In geometry, a polyhedron (plural polyhedra or polyhedrons; ) is a three-dimensional shape with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners or vertices. A convex polyhedron is the convex hull of finitely many points, not all on ...

. Harker was awarded the

Gregori Aminoff Prize The Gregori Aminoff Prize is an international prize awarded since 1979 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in the field of crystallography, rewarding "a documented, individual contribution in the field of crystallography, including areas conce ...

from the Swedish Academy in 1984.

References

External links

Herbert A. Hauptman, "David Harker", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (1998)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harker, David 1922 births 1991 deaths American biophysicists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Polytechnic Institute of New York University faculty