Alexander Rich dies at 90
Alexander Rich, an MIT biophysicist best known for his work in mapping the structure of genetic material, died Monday at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was 90. Rich, the William Thompson Sedgwick Professor in MIT’s Department of Biology, continued coming in to his office until two months ago, when he was admitted to the hospital. A pre-eminent researcher in structural molecular biology — a field that seeks to understand the molecular architecture of living organisms — Rich made major contributions to scientists’ understanding of the functions of RNA and DNA in heredity. James Watson and Francis Crick first described the right-handed, double helical structure of DNA in 1953. In 1979, Rich led a team of MIT researchers who startled the world of structural biology with the announcement that they had found a “left-handed” form of DNA. The new form, coiled in the shape of a left-handed screw, was called Z-DNA because of...