Picture of Peterhouse by Matt Brown. CC BY 2.0
Peterhouse was the college to which Max Perutz belonged. He was originally from Austria — one of the many scientists of Jewish descent helped in their flight from Nazi oppression by the Academic Assistance Council. This didn’t prevent his being rounded up on Winston Churchill’s orders as an enemy alien and interned for a few months in Newfoundland. His contribution to Britain’s war effort, after his return to Cambridge, drew on his expertise in glaciers, but his enduring scientific reputation was made after the war in the field of molecular biology. He shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Sir John Kendrew. In the final year of his life he was an eloquent advocate for restraint following the 11 September attacks on the United States.
