David Harker

Who was David Harker?

David Harker was an American medical researcher who according to the New York Times was "a pioneer in the use of X-rays to decipher the structure of critical substances in the life process of cells".

He is also well known for Harker–Kasper inequalities which he devised in collaboration with John S. Kasper. Harker made seminal discoveries in the field of chemical crystallography.

His lab solved the structure of the pancreatic enzyme ribonuclease A, the third protein structure ever solved by protein crystallography. Harker was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, director of the protein structure program at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, director of the Center for Crystallographic Research at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and the head of the crystallography division of General Electric. After retirement from RPCI in 1976, he joined the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, then known as the Medical Foundation of Buffalo. He remained there until his death in 1991. His research interests while at HWI turned towards mathematical aspects of crystallography, including color space groups and infinite polyhedra.