Scientific giants

Two alumni, two Nobel laureates, one university

Aaron Klug and Sydney Brenner, Circa 2000 Cambridge

Courtesy of Sydney Brenner

Sir Aaron Klug (BSc 1946, DSc honoris causa 1984) and Dr Sydney Brenner (BSc 1945, BSc Hons 1946, BSc Med 1951, DSc honoris causa 1972) share incredible parallels in their careers. Both were born to immigrant parents from Eastern Europe. They both started at Wits at the age of 15 with the intention to study medicine. Sir Klug switched to natural science and graduated with first-class honours in physics, chemistry and mathematics. Dr Brenner initially failed his final year of internal medicine, but finished his medical degree and devoted himself to cell biology.

Sir Klug was instrumental in revealing the structures of complex biological molecules, from viruses to tRNA, to chromatin and zinc fingers. His most important contribution to scientific research was his painstaking development of crystallographic electron microscopy. This combines the techniques of electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction to recover three-dimensional structural information from twodimensional electron micrographs. For this he was the sole recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

In 2002, Dr Brenner won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with John Sulston and H Robert Horwitz for their contribution in deciphering the genetics of programmed cell death and animal development, including how the nervous system forms. He is also remembered for his work on DNA with Francis Crick and James Watson.

Both alumni left South Africa and pursued the bulk of their scientific careers at the UK Medical Research Council’s famous Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge. Between 1986 and 1996 Sir Klug, as director, was instrumental in the British part of the Human Genome Project.

Sources: Wits Archives, Sydney Brenner: A biography by Errol Friedberg (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2010)

CARRYING THE TORCH

On 28 March 2008, Dr Brenner agreed to the use of his name for the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience at Wits under the directorship of Professor Michèle Ramsay (PhD 1987). Today a new generation of African scientists is being nurtured at the institute to generate data on genomic diversity across the continent — data that can be used globally to improve human health. A new research lab was launched in October 2021. Unique in Africa, it is an extension to the existing biobank at the Institute, in which valuable African genetic material (DNA) is preserved for analysis and research. The new lab will enable expanded capacity to store the high-tech equipment required for PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing and genomic sequencing.