Marin van Heel

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Marin Gerard van Heel (* 1949 ) is a biophysicist and structural biologist .

Life

Marin van Heel studied physics and theoretical optics at the Technical University of Delft in 1966/1967 and from 1967 at the University of Groningen . In 1976 he moved to the department for biochemistry there . In 1981 he received his doctorate from the University of Groningen. From 1982 to 1996 van Heel worked as head of the interdisciplinary working group for structural biology at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin . From 1997 he headed the Department of Structural Biology at Imperial College London , and in 2011 he moved to Leiden University .

He is Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Biology Leiden at Leiden University and the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London. As of 2017 he is research professor at the National Nanotechnology Laboratory in Campinas , Brazil .

With his Ph.D. - Working in biophysics with Erni van Bruggen , van Heel laid the foundation for the development of various methods of structural biology using cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM). With Joachim Frank he introduced Multivariate Statistical Analysis (MSA) to the electron microscopic analysis of single molecules (1981). Together with automated classification techniques and multi-reference alignments , single molecules could be examined independently of their spatial orientation (1986). 3D reconstructions were possible by means of precisely filtered back projection (1986). His group first used electron tomography on cell organelles and in 1988 reconstructed a chromosome in three dimensions. Means Projection Matching (1984) and Angular Reconstitution techniques (1987) The determination of the Euler angles of particles or the average of particle groups. In 1994/1995 the first 3D reconstruction of a macromolecule of a random arrangement was achieved.

The work of van Heel's group focuses on the analysis of different functional states of biological complexes. For example, the first study of a ribosome in a certain functional state appeared in Nature in 1997 . The other numerous analyzes include the various functional states of the complex of ribosome and termination factor RF3 (2004), with which a four-dimensional level of cryo-EM analysis was reached.

In 1987 van Heel received the Ernst Ruska Prize for Electron Microscopy, and in 2017 the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernst Ruska Prize of the DGE. In: dge-homepage.de. September 7, 2015, accessed February 23, 2017 .
  2. ^ The 16th Annual Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences Awarded for Pioneering Developments in Electron Microscopy. In: newsroom.wiley.com. February 22, 2017, accessed February 23, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Heel, Marin van
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Heel, Marin G. van; Heel, Marin Gerard van (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Biophysicist and structural biologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1949