University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: June 19, 2008

By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor

Nobel Laureate and UB Distinguished Professor Herbert A. Hauptman is the subject of a documentary that will have its television premiere at 10:30 p.m. Sunday on WNED-TV.

HAUPTMAN

The 30-minute documentary, “Herbert Hauptman: Portrait of a Laureate,” tells the story of the life and work of Hauptman, UB professor of structural biology and president of the Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI).

It was produced by WNED, with funding from Independent Health, the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, UB’s Academic Health Center and the James H. Cummings Foundation.

The documentary project was the brainchild of Michael W. Cropp, president and CEO of Independent Health. Gretchen Fierle, vice president for communications and community relations for Independent Health, told the Reporter earlier this week that Cropp had lunch with Hauptman several years ago and, after hearing the scientist tell his life story, “felt there was a need to document his (Hauptman’s) story to ensure that his legacy was maintained here in Western New York.”

Cropp approached Donald K. Boswell, president and CEO of WNED, a public broadcasting station based in Buffalo. The two brokered a deal in which WNED would pay production costs and Independent Health would cover other costs, Fierle says. The documentary premiered last week at a special reception, and will have its first public airing on Sunday night. It will be rebroadcast at 2 p.m. June 29 on WNED and at 9:30 p.m. July 12 on ThinkBright TV.

WNED also produced 500 DVDs of the documentary that will be distributed to local schools, with a particular focus on the Buffalo Public Schools, Fierle says. The goal of the DVDs is to use Hauptman’s personal story to encourage local students to consider pursuing careers in mathematics and science, she adds.

Born in Brooklyn to a working-class family, Hauptman received a bachelor’s degree from City College of New York, a master’s degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.

A mathematician by training, Hauptman worked for more than 20 years as a researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., before moving to Buffalo to join the Medical Foundation of Buffalo—renamed the Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute in 1994.

He received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1985, along with Naval Research Laboratory colleague Jerome Karle, for developing an innovative mathematical technique called “direct methods” that has enabled scientists around the world to determine the three-dimensional structure of molecules rapidly and automatically, using computer programs.

Hauptman, now 91, continues to work at HWI every day. His current work focuses on developing new methods to solve protein structures using neutron radiation.