Arieh Warshel Is Honored

Arieh Warshel, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Southern California, has been awarded the 2006 President's Award in Computational Biology of the International Society of Quantum Biology & Pharmacology (ISQBP).

The award is presented every two years to an individual who has made a significant contribution to the field of computational chemistry and biology. The award was presented at the ISQBP President's Meeting in Strasbourg, France, in June.

Warshel is among the world leaders in computational biophysics. He and his research group introduced several of the most effective models for computer simulations of biological molecules. They pioneered molecular dynamics simulations of biological systems in studies of the vision and photosynthesis processes and introduced simulation studies of chemical reactions in enzymes and solutions, as well as simulations of protein folding and studies of electrostatic energies in proteins. Warshel and his coworkers have been responsible for the development of the emerging field of computational enzymology.

As a result of Warshel's work, questions about the functions of particular biological molecular structures can now be formulated as well-defined problems in computational chemistry, ranging from enzyme design to ion flow to the action of molecular motors.