Michael Levitt, PhD

Professor, Structural Biology, Stanford
2013 Nobel Laureate

Michael, Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford University, received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Martin Karplus and Arieh Warshel, 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. His early work pioneered the rapidly growing field of computational structural biology, which helped to predict molecular structures, compute structural changes, refine experimental structure, model enzyme catalysis, and classify protein structures.