born May 19, 1914, Vienna, Austria
died Feb. 6, 2002, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, Eng.
Austrian-British biochemist.
With John Cowdery Kendrew he founded the Medical Research Council Unit for Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge. His discovery that hemoglobin 's structure changes when it picks up or releases oxygen led to the full understanding of the molecular mechanism of respiratory oxygen transport by hemoglobin. For his X-ray diffraction analysis of hemoglobin's structure, Perutz and Kendrew shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Perutz also used crystallography to study the flow of glacier s.