Michael Rossmann facts for kids

Michael G. Rossmann (born 30 July 1930 – died 14 May 2019) was a German-American scientist. He studied physics and tiny living things (microbiology). He was a special professor at Purdue University.

Rossmann led a team that was the first to figure out the exact shape of a human common cold virus. They saw it down to its tiny atoms. He also found a special shape in many proteins called the Rossmann fold. His work helped scientists understand the shapes of proteins using X-ray crystallography. This method is called molecular replacement.

Early Life and Education

Michael Rossmann was born in Frankfurt, Germany. He studied physics and math at the University of London. There, he earned his first university degrees. In 1953, he moved to Glasgow, Scotland. He taught physics and earned his Ph.D. in 1956. His Ph.D. focused on how chemicals are arranged in crystals.

He became interested in crystallography after hearing scientist Kathleen Lonsdale speak. Rossmann started his career studying crystals with J. Monteath Robertson at the University of Glasgow.

In 1956, Rossmann and his family moved to the University of Minnesota. He continued his research there for two years. He worked with Professor William N. Lipscomb, Jr.. He also wrote computer programs to help study structures.

Discoveries and Research

In 1958, Rossmann returned to the UK. He worked at the University of Cambridge with Max Perutz. They studied the structure of hemoglobin, a protein in blood.

In 1964, Rossmann joined Purdue University. He became a professor and led the lab that used X-ray crystallography. This lab used X-rays to see tiny structures.

In 1970, his lab found the structure of a large protein from dogfish sharks. In 1973, his team found the structure of another protein. Rossmann quickly saw that a part of this protein looked very similar to the one in the shark protein. This similar part is now called the Rossmann fold. It is found in many enzymes that bind to important molecules like ATP.

Rossmann then started studying viruses. From 1972 to 1980, his team worked on the southern bean mosaic virus. This work needed new computer programs. They found that this virus had a similar "jelly roll fold" to another virus. This was a surprise at the time.

In the early 1980s, Rossmann began studying picornaviruses. He chose HRV14, one of the viruses that causes the common cold. It was hard to get enough of the virus for their studies. Rossmann pushed Purdue to buy a powerful supercomputer. This computer helped them do calculations much faster.

In 1985, his team published their discovery in the journal Nature. They had mapped the structure of the common cold virus. This was a huge step forward! The news was shared widely. This work helped scientists understand how viruses enter cells. It also helped create medicines against many enteroviruses.

After this success, his lab studied other viruses like alphaviruses and flaviviruses. In 2016, his lab used cryo-electron microscopy to find the structure of the Zika virus. This virus was causing a serious outbreak at the time. This work was possible because of many years of studying similar viruses.

Rossmann was also interested in complex viral machines. These include bacteriophage T4 and giant viruses. His work helped study these huge viruses at a very detailed level.

Life and Hobbies

Michael Rossmann loved to hike and sail. He even won sailboat races on Indiana lakes. He was a very energetic person.

His wife, Audrey, was an artist. They had three children: Martin, Alice, and Heather. Audrey passed away in 2009.

Later in his life, Rossmann met Karen Bogan. They married after he moved to a retirement home. He continued working on scientific papers until shortly before he died.

Michael Rossmann died on 14 May 2019. He was 88 years old. Purdue president Mitch Daniels said he was "still vital, still curious, still in his lab at age 88."

Rossmann Supercomputer

A powerful computer system at Purdue University is named the Rossmann cluster. It is named after Michael Rossmann. He was a pioneer in using powerful computers for his research. He used them to discover the structures of viruses and proteins. His team's calculations were some of the biggest tasks done on Purdue's computers.

Awards and Honors

Michael Rossmann received many awards and honors for his work.

• In 1978, he became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• In 1984, he became a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.
• In 1996, he became a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London.
• In 1999, he became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He also received the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize in 1990. He was given honorary doctorates from several universities around the world. These included Uppsala University in Sweden and the University of Glasgow in Scotland. He also won the Gregori Aminoff Prize in 1994 and the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 2001.

In 1995, his own university, Purdue, gave him the Purdue University Medal of Honor. In 2016, he received the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics. This was for his amazing work in figuring out the atomic structures of proteins and viruses.