Robert Corey

Robert Corey (August 19, 1897 – April 23, 1971) is a little known scientist, mostly known for his helping Linus Pauling discover the α-helix and the β-sheet in the spring of 1951. Also working with Pauling was Herman Branson. Their discoveries were remarkably correct, with even the bond lengths being accurate until about 40 years later. The α-helix and β-sheet are two structures that are now known to form the backbones of many proteins.

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The findings of α-helix and β-sheet

At Caltech, the trio (Pauling, Corey and Branson) published a series of 8 articles in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The most revolutionary of the 8 articles in PNAS is the first one, written on February 28, 1951. That date was also Pauling's 50th birthday. It was called "The Structure of Proteins: Two Hydrogen-Bonded Helical Configurations of the Polypeptide Chain". In the paper, one odd thing is that the trio diagrammed the α-helix as a left-handed helix, although it is really a right-handed one. Another odd thing in the paper is that the 3(10) helix is almost never mentioned, although it is very common, while the γ-helix, which was another focus of the paper, is almost never seen.