Research Areas:
Protein Evolution, Crystallographic Phase Problem, Cryo-EM Refinement

Prof. Michael LEVITT received his PhD in Biophysics from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Cambridge University in 1971. He had been faculty at the Weizmann Institute of Science and Cambridge University. He joined Stanford University in 1987 and is currently Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor in Cancer Research at the Department of Structural Biology. He is also a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford (by courtesy).

Prof. Levitt’s research interests include RNA & DNA modeling, protein folding simulation, classification of protein folds & protein geometry, antibody modeling, x-ray refinement, antibody humanization, side-chain geometry, torsional normal mode, molecular dynamics in solution, secondary structure prediction, aromatic hydrogen bonds, structure databases, and mass spectrometry. His current work focuses on protein evolution, the crystallographic phase problem and Cryo-EM refinement.

Prof. Levitt received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2013, together with Profs Martin KARPLUS and Arieh WARSHEL, for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems. He is also recipient of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies Anniversary Prize. He is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization, and a Fellow of the Royal Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.