G Marius Clore, Chief of Section of Molecular and Structural Biophysicsis at the National Institutes of Health, is one of the pioneers in developing NMR into the powerful tool it is today for studying the structure, dynamics and interactions of proteins. His work has focused on developing NMR experiments to detect, characterize and visualize transient, rare conformations of proteins that have revealed new insights into macromolecular recognition and assembly. Examples include the first experimental visualization of encounter complexes that form the first step in protein-protein association; and the structural and kinetic characterization of the transient, pre-nucleation oligomerization events that trigger huntingtin fibril formation, a key event in the aetiology of Huntington's disease, a fatal neurodegenerative disease.