List of biophysicists

This is a list of notable people known for their research in biophysics.^[1]

A

• Gary Ackers (American, 1939–2011) — thermodynamics of protein assembly into complexes, protein-DNA interactions and enzyme subunit interactions
• David A. Agard
• Christian B. Anfinsen (American, 1916–1995) — author of the postulate about spontaneous protein folding, for which he received a Nobel Prize

B

• David Baker — Protein structure prediction; protein design; Rosetta software
• Adriaan (Ad) Bax (Dutch-born American, 1956–) — development of methodology for NMR (Nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy
• Georg von Békésy (Hungarian, 1899–1972) — research on the human ear^[1]
• Boris Pavlovich Belousov — known for discovery of Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction
• bacterial chemotaxis
• Helen M. Berman (American, 1943–) — pioneer in study of nucleic acid structure; head of the worldwide Protein Data Bank
• John Desmond Bernal (Irish-born English, 1901–1971) — X-ray crystallography of plant viruses and proteins
• Pamela J. Bjorkman (American, 1956–) — first X-ray crystallography of human histocompatibility complex; studies immune recognition, homologs of MHC proteins, and improved antibodies against HIV
• Steven Block (American, 1952–) — observed the motions of enzymes such as kinesin and RNA polymerase with optical tweezers
• Tom Blundell — crystal structures of HIV protease, renin, insulin and other hormones, growth factors, receptors, and proteins important in cell signalling and DNA repair; developed structure-guided and fragment-based approaches to drug design
• Jagadish Chandra Bose (Indian, 1858–1937)^[1]
• Detlev Wulf Bronk (American, 1897–1975) ^[1]
• Axel Brunger — developed the free R cross-validation index and the X-PLOR/CNS
  software for macromolecular crystallography
• molecular motors and biological polymer physics

• Charles Cantor — Director, Center for Advanced Biotechnology, Boston University. Cantor is a molecular geneticist who developed pulse field electrophoresis for very large DNA molecules with David C. Schwartz in 1984, by adding an alternating voltage gradient to standard gel electrophoresis.
• Carlos Chagas Filho (Brazilian)
• Donald Caspar — theory of quasi-equivalence in icosahedral viruses
• heliobiology
• Wah Chiu — cryo electron microscopy; virus structure; high-resolution cryoEM
• Steven Chu — Nobel laureate who helped develop optical trapping techniques used by many biophysicists
• conformational states of macromolecules
• Carolyn Cohen — in 1969, Cohen codiscovered the molecular structure of tropomyosin as a polar coiled coil, also being the first protein crystal structure determined with a 20Å resolution via x-ray crystallography. On the route to this discovery, she also discovered a novel crystal structure, termed the Cohen-Longley paracrystal with 400Å periodicity, in 1966.
• Robert Corey — co-discoverer (with Linus Pauling) of the alpha helix and beta sheet structures in proteins
• computer assisted tomography
• SMI
• Francis Crick — co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. Later participated in the Crick, Brenner et al. experiment which established the basis for understanding the genetic code.

D

• Johann Deisenhofer (German and American) — solved first three-dimensional structure of membrane protein
• Max Delbrück — discovered that bacteria become resistant to phages as a result of genetic mutations. Delbrück, Salvador Luria, and Alfred Hershey shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses"
• Emilio Del Giudice (Italian, 1940–2014) — water research
• Friedrich Dessauer — research on radiation, especially X-rays
• Ken A. Dill (American, 1947–) — research on folding pathways of proteins.
• Christopher Dobson (British, 1949–2019) — protein folding and misfolding
• Jennifer Doudna (American, 1964–) — structures of large RNAs; pioneer in CRISPR research
• Leslie Dutton (British and American) — Oxidoreductase function and design.

E

• Richard H. Ebright — single-molecule enzymology; structure and function of RNA polymerases
• antibodies
• David Eisenberg
• Donald Engelman
• Richard R. Ernst — developer of two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy
• William A. Eaton  - protein folding, function, and aggregation

F

• George Feher (1924–2017)  — photosynthesis mechanisms for plants and bacteria
• Julio M. Fernandez
• Alan Fersht — pioneered work on protein folding
• Fick's law of diffusion and a method to determine cardiac output
• Joachim Frank — pioneered single-particle reconstruction in electron microscopy; studied structure and dynamics of ribosomes.^[2]
• Rosalind Franklin  — pioneer of DNA crystallography and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA
• Clara Franzini-Armstrong
• Hans Frauenfelder (1922–2022)  — pioneering work on experiment and theory to understand dynamic behavior in protein structure

G

• bioelectricity
• Walter (Wally) Gilbert — Nobel laureate; introduced intron/exon concept, proposed RNA world hypothesis
• Martin Gruebele — Protein Folding

H

• Taekjip Ha (South-Korean-born American, 1968–) — single-molecule biophysics
• hearing and vision
• Stefan Hell — developed the principle of STED microscopy
• cryo-EM
  to study membrane protein structures.
• protein crystallography
• Hill coefficient for cooperativity in enzyme kinetics
  , physics of nerves and muscles
• Alan Hodgkin — mathematical theory of how ion fluxes produce nerve impulses (with Andrew Huxley)
• Dorothy Hodgkin (English, 1910–1994) — winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, known for determining the structures of penicillin, vitamin B12, and insulin
• genetic material
• Barry H. Honig (American, 1941–) — pioneered theory and computation for electrostatics in biological macromolecules^[3]
• Hopfield net
  )
• chaperonins
• computer assisted tomography
• Wayne L. Hubbell — circa 1989, he oversaw the development of the technique termed site-directed spin labeling (SDSL), used for determining protein structure and dynamics through genetically creating an attachment point for a nitroxide spin labeled probe. The technique allows insight on the nature of how a protein's structure and conformational changes create/form protein function.
• Andrew Huxley — mathematical theory of how ion fluxes produce nerve impulses (with Alan Hodgkin)
• Hugh Huxley (English, 1924–2013) — muscle structure and contraction
• James S. Hyde (American Biophysicist, 1934–) — Developer of EPR and MRI instrumentation, holder of 35 U.S. Patents

I

• Shinya Inoué (Japanese-born American, 1921–2019) — cytoskeletal dynamics

J

• Jagadish Chandra Bose — biologist, physicist, botanist, and an early writer of science fiction
• Louise Johnson (English, 1940–2012) — Crystal structure of lysozyme (1st enzyme) with David Phillips, then glycogen phosphorylase. Wrote influential crystallography textbook with Tom Blundell.^[4]
• Pascual Jordan (German, 1902–1980)^[1]

K

• Martin Karplus (American, 1930–) — research on molecular dynamical simulations of biological macromolecules.
• Michael Kasha (American, 1920–2013) — founder of Institute of Molecular Biophysics at Florida State University
• Bernard Katz (British, 1911–2003) — discovered how synapses work^[1]
• Ephraim Katzir
• Walter Kauzmann — one of the first to recognize the role of hydrophobic effect in protein folding
• protein misfolding
  and aggregation
• John Kendrew (British, 1917–1997) — pioneer of protein crystallography
• Dorothee Kern
• crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid
  -protein complexes
• G-protein-coupled receptors
• Stephen Kowalczykowski — "visual biochemistry" of DNA repair and homologous recombination
• John Kuriyan

L

• Robert S. Langer — biotechnology, drug delivery, and tissue engineering; Wolf Prize in Chemistry; Priestley Medal
• Paul Lauterbur — development of magnetic resonance imaging
• Stephen D. Levene — DNA-protein Interactions, DNA looping, and DNA topology
• Michael Levitt — winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Arieh Warshel) for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems^[5]
• Karolin Luger — studies of chromatin and nucleosome structure.

M

• Roderick MacKinnon — determined first three-dimensional structure of voltage-gated transmembrane ion channel
• David H. MacLennan
  (Canadian)
• Marvin Makinen — pioneer of the structural basis of enzyme action
• Peter Mansfield — development of magnetic resonance imaging
• protein crystallography
• Ann McDermott — study of biological samples using solid-state NMR^[6]
• chemiosmotic mechanism of ATP
  synthesis
• Manuel Morales (Honduran-born American, 1919–2009) — molecular basis of muscle contraction
• X-rays cause mutations

• Erwin Neher — development of the patch clamp and single-channel recording (along with Bert Sakmann)
• Eva Nogales (Spanish) — electron microscopy; microtubule dynamics

O

• functional magnetic resonance imaging
• Rutgers
  , pioneer in study of DNA structure

P

• George Palade
   — Nobel Laureate in physiology or medicine for protein secretion and cell ultra-structure from electron microscopy studies
• Linus Pauling — co-discoverer (with Robert Corey) of the alpha helix and beta sheet structures in proteins
• Max Perutz — pioneer of protein crystallography
• Ernest C. Pollard — founder of the Biophysical Society
• Fritz-Albert Popp (German, 1938–2018) — biophoton research and coherence systems in biology
• Quantum Chemistry
  in Biology

Q

R

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Ronald T. Raines (American, 1958–) — structure and function of enzymes and other proteins
• Gopalasamudram Narayana Iyer Ramachandran — famous for the Ramachandran plot
  of protein backbone conformation
• 30S subunit of the bacterial ribosome
• Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy — solid-state NMR
• John Randall — X-ray and neutron diffraction of proteins and DNA
• Zihe Rao (Chinese) — structural biologist, member Chinese Academy of Sciences, president of Nankai University^[7]
• Nicolas Rashevsky,^[8] former Editor of the first journal of mathematical and theoretical biophysics entitled " The Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics " (1940–1973) and author of the two-factor model of neuronal excitation, biotopology and organismic set theory
• Frederic M. Richards
• Jane Richardson (American, 1941–) — developed the ribbon diagram for representing the 3D structure of proteins; with husband David, developed MolProbity structure-validation web service
• Robert Rosen — theoretical biophysicist and mathematical biologist, author of: metabolic-replication systems, categories of metabolic and genetic networks, quantum genetics in terms of von Neumann's approach, non-reductionist complexity theories, dynamical and anticipatory systems in biology.^[9]
• Michael Rossmann — worked with Max Perutz on the crystal structure of hemoglobin, then in his own lab solved structures of enzymes including lactate dehydrogenase, the prototype of the Rossmann fold, and of many viruses including the common cold virus.
• membrane proteins
  and bridging the gap between theoretical and experimental biophysics through computation.

S

• Erich Sackmann — founder of the bottom-up approach to understanding of the cell mechanics and adhesion
• Bert Sakmann — development of the patch clamp and single-channel recording (along with Erwin Neher)
• Francis O. Schmitt (American, 1903–1995)^[1]
• Simon Shnoll — worked in the fields of chemical clocks, Chronobiology and Astrobiology.
• Timothy Springer
• James Spudich — molecular motors
• Thomas A. Steitz
• Lubert Stryer
• Attila Szabo — Founders award of the Biophysical Society for theoretical analysis of biophysics experiments^[10]

T

• CATH
  for protein structure classification
• radiation biology
• Ignacio Tinoco
• Chikashi Toyoshima — Ca-ATPase ion pump^[11]
• Roger Tsien — Nobel laureate who pioneered the use of green fluorescent protein
  for biological imaging

• ultracentrifugation
• Steven Vogel — biomechanics
• Mikhail Volkenshtein

W

• pigeons
  )
• electrostatic
  calculations in proteins.
• James D. Watson — co-discoverer of the structure of DNA
  .
• Anthony Watts — early proponent of the idea of both structural and functional significance of “Lipid-protein interactions”, and developer of solid state NMR for biology.
• Watt W. Webb — developer of multiphoton microscopy
• Gregorio Weber
• John Wikswo — research on biomagnetism and cardiac electrophysiology
• Don Craig Wiley — applied molecular biophysics to study of viruses^[12]
• Maurice Wilkins (New Zealand-born British, 1916–2004) — pioneer of DNA crystallography and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.^[1]
• Kurt Wüthrich — Nobel Laureate in physiology or medicine for 2D-FT NMR of protein structure in solution^[13]
• Joe Wortham

X

• enzymology

Y

• sensory transduction
  in rod, cone, and non-image visual systems and in olfaction
• Ada Yonath (Israeli, 1939–) — winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (with Steitz and Ramakrishnan) for solving the crystal structure of the large subunit of the ribosome
• Douglas Youvan — light reactions of photosynthesis, genetic code, imaging spectroscopy and directed evolution

Z

• Zimm-Bragg model
  of helix formation

See also

• List of members of the National Academy of Sciences (Biophysics and computational biology)
• Heineken Prizes
• Alexander Hollaender Award in Biophysics

References