Sir Sir John Cowdery Kendrew CBE FRS ( 24 March 1917 - 23 August 1997 ) was an English biochemist and crystallographer . Sir John Cowdery Kendrew , CBE , FRS ( 24 March 1917 - 23 August 1997 ) was an English biochemist and crystallographer who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Max Perutz ; their group in the Cavendish Laboratory investigated the structure of heme-containing proteins .