Michael G Rossmann was a German-American physicist, microbiologist, and Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences at Purdue University who led a team of researchers to be the first to map the structure of a human common cold virus to an atomic level.
16 Facts About Michael Rossmann
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Michael Rossmann moved to Glasgow in 1953 where he taught physics in the technical college and received his Ph.
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Michael Rossmann returned to the UK and to the University of Cambridge in 1958, where he worked with Max Perutz on the structure of hemoglobin as a research associate at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
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In 1964 Michael Rossmann joined the faculty of the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University as an associate professor.
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Michael Rossmann became full professor in 1967 and from 1978 held the chair of Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences at the university.
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Michael Rossmann held a joint appointment in the department of biochemistry and adjunct positions in Cornell University's Division of Biological Sciences and in Indiana University's school of medicine.
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In 1973 his group found the structure of Glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase, and Michael Rossmann immediately realized that the binding site for the NAD was very similar to the one in the lactate dehydrogenase.
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Michael Rossmann then turned to viruses, spending a sabbatical in 1971 with Bror Strandberg in Uppsala, Sweden, working on the structure of the satellite tobacco necrosis virus.
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Michael Rossmann pushed for the purchase by Purdue of a Cyber 205 supercomputer, capable of delivering hundreds of megaflops.
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Michael Rossmann was an avid hiker and sailboat enthusiast, winning M-16 Scow races on Indiana lakes.
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Michael Rossmann was very energetic, which sometimes caused difficulties for his team members.
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When diagnosed with cancer, Michael Rossmann moved into a retirement home, where he met and later married a staff member in charge of welcoming and hospitality, Karen Bogan.
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Michael Rossmann was working on papers and grant proposals until shortly before his death.
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The Rossmann cluster is named for Michael Rossmann, Purdue's Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences, who is a pioneer in employing high-performance computing in research to reveal the structure of viruses and their component protein molecules.
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Michael Rossmann was awarded honorary doctorates by Uppsala University, Sweden ; the University of Strasbourg, France; Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium; University of Glasgow, Scotland; University of York, England; Institut Armand-Frappier, University of Quebec, Canada.
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Michael Rossmann was awarded the Gregori Aminoff Prize in 1994, the Ewald Prize in 1996, and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 2001.