Source: Office of Medical Science
Written by: Office of Medical Science
Photo by: Wei Yi
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

On the afternoon of November 10, Prof. Michael Levitt, 2013 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, member of both the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, gave a lecture entitled “Birth & Future Of Multiscale Modeling Of Macromolecules” at Yat-sen Distinguished Scholars Forum in Administrative Building on East Campus of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU). The lecture was hosted by Prof. Li Mengfeng, Vice President of SYSU.
Prof. Levitt talked about his research experience in computational structural biology in a wise and humorous way. He said modestly that his academic achievements come from standing on the shoulders of giants. Prof. Levitt started from the discovery of the double helix DNA model by Watson and Crick, and listed important discoveries in structural biology. He also showed the future of multi-scale dynamics of huge systems and the applications to human health.

Vice President Li Mengfeng thanked Prof. Levitt for coming to the Yat-sen Distinguished Scholars Forum organized by SYSU to celebrate its 90th anniversary. He said that Prof. Levitt’s lecture was an academic feast for the audience, and encouraged the teachers and students to learn from Prof. Levitt’s modesty and academic enthusiasm.

Dr. Michael Levitt has served as Professor of structural biology at Stanford University from 1987 till now. His research field is structural biology and computational biology. Dr. Levitt was one of the first researchers to conduct molecular dynamics simulations of DNA and proteins and developed the first software for this purpose. Dr. Levitt received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Martin Karplus and Arieh Warshel for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems." Besides the Nobel Prize, he has received many other awards and honors. In 1981, he became Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. In 1986 he won the Federation of European Biochemical Societies Anniversary Prize. He is Fellow of the Royal Society and member of both the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.