Jerome Karle was a distinguished American physical chemist born on June 18, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, to Eastern European immigrant parents. He graduated from City College in New York in 1937 alongside his future collaborator Herbert Hauptman, and subsequently earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1943. Karle began his scientific career at the New York State Health Department where he developed a method for measuring fluorine in water, which later facilitated effective water fluoridation programs. His career progressed through significant wartime contributions to the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago, where he worked on plutonium chemistry alongside his wife Isabella, before establishing his lifelong research base at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. in 1946.
At the Naval Research Laboratory, Karle, in collaboration with Herbert Hauptman, pioneered mathematical methods for determining molecular structures through X-ray crystallography, developing direct methods that revolutionized the field of structural analysis. Their groundbreaking approach, first published in 1949, enabled scientists to pinpoint the location of atoms within crystal molecules by analyzing the intensity patterns of X-ray diffraction spots, solving what was previously considered an intractable phase problem. This innovation dramatically accelerated structural determination, reducing the time required to analyze a simple biological molecule from two years to approximately two days when combined with computational power in the 1980s. Karle's methodology became fundamental to understanding complex biological molecules including hormones, vitamins, and antibiotics, thereby catalyzing advances in drug development and medicinal chemistry that continue to impact pharmaceutical research today.
Karle's scientific leadership extended beyond his research as he served as President of the American Crystallographic Association in 1972 and President of the International Union of Crystallography from 1981 to 1984, significantly shaping the global crystallography community. His collaborative work with his wife Isabella, who established the experimental X-ray diffraction facility that validated their theoretical approaches, demonstrated the power of scientific partnerships, though he notably acknowledged the injustice that her contributions were not similarly recognized with the Nobel Prize. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985 alongside Hauptman, Karle was also elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1976 and received the Department of the Navy Distinguished Civilian Award upon his retirement in 2009 after sixty-three years of service. His enduring legacy continues to influence both chemistry and medicine, particularly in enzyme research and the study of medicinal properties of rare organisms, with his methodologies remaining foundational to modern structural biology and pharmaceutical development.
