Professor Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California will present his Award Lecture, Advances in Modelling Biological Functions on Thursday 29 November, from 4.15, in 8W2.1. All are welcome.
He is the winner of the 2012 Soft Matter & Biophysical Chemistry Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry, for his numerous ground-breaking developments in computational biophysical chemistry that have paved the way to the elucidation of protein structure/function relationships.
Professor Warshel pioneered computer modelling of the function of proteins and introduced the key ideas in the emerging field of simulations of biological processes on a molecular level. His work paved the way for describing and analysing biological functions through well-defined chemical physics concepts. His innovations include the development of the hybrid quantum/ molecular mechanics method, which led to the introduction of quantitative studies of enzymatic reactions, and formed the foundation of what is now a major scientific discipline. He also pioneered molecular dynamics simulations in biology and physically consistent electrostatic modelling of proteins, showing that electrostatic effects control most biological functions.
Professor Ian Williams, Department of Chemistry