Boris Konstantinovich Vainshtein (born 10.08.1921) — Soviet physicist and crystallographer, academician (1976, corresponding member 1962). Born in Moscow. He graduated from Moscow University (1945) and from the Institute of Steel (1947). Since 1949 he has worked at the Institute of Crystallography of the USSR Academy of Sciences (head of a laboratory from 1958, director from 1962).
His research concerned the theory of diffraction, electron and X-ray diffraction, the determination of the atomic structure of crystals, the structure of biological crystals and macromolecules, and general questions of crystallography. He developed structural electron diffraction (1954), determined a number of inorganic and organic structures and was the first to establish the positions of hydrogen atoms in a number of crystals (1950). He developed the theory of the scattering of X-rays by polymeric substances and liquid crystals (1963). He determined the structure of a number of amino acids and polypeptides. He developed the method of so-called direct three-dimensional reconstruction, the recovery of the three-dimensional structure of biological objects from their electron micrographs (1971). In 1975–81 he determined the crystal structure of a number of proteins, in particular of leghaemoglobin, the oxygen-binding protein of plants, and of the enzymes aspartate transaminase, pyrophosphatase and catalase, one of the most complex proteins whose structure has been determined so far (molecular weight 250 000). He worked on producing crystals for quantum electronics and other technically important crystals, and on the automation of the structure analysis of crystals.