Michael Levitt to offer first public seminar since being awarded the Nobel Prize
In his first talk on the topic at Stanford since sharing the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Stanford Professor Michael Levitt will give a seminar titled “Birth & Future of Multi-Scale Modeling of Macromolecules” at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 12 in Building 320, Room 105.
Levitt is the Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor in Cancer Research in the Department of Structural Biology and Professor, by courtesy, of Computer Science.
He recently shared the Nobel Prize with Martin Karplus of the University of Strasbourg in France and Harvard University, and Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California “for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.”
Levitt's work focuses on theoretical, computer-aided analysis of protein, DNA and RNA molecules responsible for life at its most fundamental level. Delineating the precise molecular structures of biological molecules is a necessary first step in understanding how they work and in designing drugs to alter their function.
Levitt's early work pioneered computational structural biology, which helped to predict molecular structures, compute structural changes, refine experimental structure, model enzyme catalysis and classify protein structures. His basic research set the stage for most subsequent work in the rapidly growing field. It also led to practical methods for antibody humanization that are key for modern anticancer therapy.
In this talk, Levitt will describe the origins of computational structural biology, then show some of the most exciting current and future applications.
Levitt, who holds U.S., British and Israeli citizenship, is a member of Bio-X, a Stanford initiative that brings together experts in biology, medicine, chemistry, physics and engineering. He received his PhD from Cambridge University in 1972. He did research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., before joining the Stanford faculty in 1987.
Levitt’s talk is sponsored by Stanford’s Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering, a degree-granting (MS/PhD) interdisciplinary institute at the intersection of mathematics, computing, engineering and applied sciences. No reservations are required.
