- 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Intro
Swiss chemist, biophysicist, professor of ETH Zurich and The Scripps Research Institute.
In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution.".
Education and Work Experience
1964, Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of Basel, Switzerland
1969-Present, Assitant Proffesor, Associate Professor, Professor of the ETH Zurich, Switzerland
2004-Present, Professor of the Scripps Research Institute, USA
Honors and Awards
1992, Foreign Associate, the United States National Academy of Sciences 1993, Foreign Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2002, Nobel Prize in Chemistry
2010, Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS)
Major Academic Achievements
High-resolution three-dimensional structures and molecular dynamics of proteins are the basis for elucidating biological functions of proteins. Wüthrich collaborated with Nobel laureate Richard R. Ernst on developing the first two-dimensional NMR experiments, and established the nuclear Overhauser effect as a convenient way of measuring distances within proteins. Contributions of the Wüthrich group include NMR structure determination of biological macromolecules, the extension of solution NMR studies to very large molecular structures with the principles of transverse relaxation-optimized spectroscopy (TROSY), the introduction of automated projection spectroscopy (APSY) for efficient structure determination of small soluble proteins.
Practical applications are primarily focused on prion proteins, opioid receptors, other GPCRs, and higher-order complexes containing protein domains and RNAs in the spliceosome.