Drawing of normal (left) and sickled cells (right) by illustrator Roger Hayward, a frequent collaborator of Pauling's. Click to Enlarge Click to Enlarge 1949 Sickle Cell Anemia: A Molecular Disease Pauling and his co-researchers, studying sickle cell anemia, were the first to introduce the concept of a molecular disease. Their research "showed for the first time that the cause of a disease could be traced to an altered molecular structure, raising hopes that all diseases might be explained in a similar fashion. [And] since this disease was known to be inheritable, [they] argued that genes determined precisely the structure of proteins. These two points have become so obvious today that it might seem surprising that they have a history." [Excerpt by Bruno Strasser from Linus Pauling: Scientist and Peacemaker, Clifford Mead and Thomas Hager, eds.]

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