Axel T. Brunger

Axel T. Brunger (born November 25, 1956) is a

Brunger was born in Leipzig, East Germany, on November 25, 1956. He graduated with a degree in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Hamburg in 1977. He completed his Diplom in Physics from the University of Hamburg in 1980. He completed his PhD in Biophysics from Technical University of Munich in 1982, advised by Klaus Schulten.^[2]

Academic career

Brunger held a NATO postdoctoral fellowship to work with

These programs make use of a method called simulated annealing in conjunction with molecular dynamics to refine protein structures. X-PLOR was the first time a modern optimization technique was applied to the problem of crystallographic refinement. Brunger also subsequently introduced the RFree technique to cross-validate the model given the observed data.^[5] In the mid-1990s, his team extended X-PLOR into a complete system to solve structures, which then became the more full-featured tool CNS, capable of performing a series of steps necessary for crystallography structure determination, such as obtaining phases from experimental data and molecular replacement phasing from known homologous structures.^[6]

Brunger's research group currently studies the molecular mechanism of synaptic vesicle fusion in neurotransmission.^[1]

References