Nobel laureate Michael Levitt to receive the 2024 Carrier Medal
Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, a professor of structural biology at Stanford University, will be awarded the Rev. Joseph Carrier, C.S.C. Science Medal by the University of Notre Dame’s College of Science on Sept. 9 (Monday).
Levitt won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2013, shared with Martin Karplus and Arieh Warshel, for developing the first method to calculate chemical reactions using computers — while integrating features of classical physical and quantum mechanics. Their work, the majority of which was performed in the 1970s, led to new insights into how proteins fold or misfold, and how enzymes catalyze. By looking at the structure of molecules, the trio revolutionized the field of biochemistry and research into the structural basis of diseases.
Levitt’s lecture will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Dahnke Ballroom on the seventh floor of Duncan Student Center. He will focus on the fusion of the three types of intelligence: biological intelligence, human intelligence and artificial intelligence. His talk, titled, “Multidisciplinary Revolution in Biology and Artificial Intelligence,” will describe how AI and computational biology have revolutionized our approach to disease, making drug development faster and more cost-effective. Levitt will also underscore the critical role of multidisciplinary collaboration that will drive the next revolution in biology and AI.
Levitt, the Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor of Cancer Research at Stanford, said he was honored and pleasantly surprised to be named the 2024 Carrier Medal recipient.
“Usually, after the Nobel Prize, you don’t get prizes . . . and I was very complimented,” he said. “This is, I think, the largest American prize I have ever received, and I’m excited to come to Notre Dame to give my talk.”
Levitt started his career in computers during the 1960s when computers were as large as rooms. Born in Pretoria, South Africa, he earned his undergraduate degree in physics at King’s College in London, and his doctoral degree in computational biology from the University of Cambridge.
The framework behind computational structural biology began around the same time Levitt embarked on his research. His mentor at Cambridge, John Kendrew (who had won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1962), requested that Levitt spend a year with Schneior Lifson, a professor of chemical physics at the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, before beginning his doctoral program. Lifson had several theories about atomic interactions, but proving them required a computer.
“(Kendrew) wouldn’t accept me as a Ph.D. student until I went to Israel for a year, sort of like a gap year, and I didn’t understand why,” Levitt said. “But as a result, at the end of that first year in Israel, I was able to complete a computer model that would explain the energetics of a protein structure.”
During the research at the Weizmann Institute, Levitt, Karplus and Warshel combined their expertise to develop computer programs that could simulate the behavior of complex molecular systems. Creating hybrid models that integrated classical physics and quantum mechanics allowed them to describe chemical reactions in large molecules like proteins. Most of the work was finished by the time Levitt was 25.
Over time, Levitt became more and more fascinated with the field. But, “I was never somebody who had a five-year plan,” he said. He first became interested in science because of television. He watched television for the first time during a visit with his aunt and uncle in Great Britain. One program that caught his interest was a science show featuring Kendrew.
“I knew then that, basically, this is the person I wanted to do a Ph.D. with,” Levitt said.
That one television program led Levitt to science — highlighting the importance of continuing to make science “visible” even among today’s crowded choices. Given annually for sustained, outstanding achievements in any area of science, the Rev. Carrier Medal exemplifies one way to bring science to the public’s attention, Levitt said.
“We’ve always lived in a society of celebrities, and in some ways, it’s just a way to focus on a certain area: A sports celebrity probably makes young people keener about sports,” he said, adding that there can also be science celebrities. “If you look at how our society has changed as a result of science and technology, it’s important to actually encourage people to become scientists.”
Notre Dame’s award is named after Rev. Joseph Celestine Basile Carrier, C.S.C., who is recognized as the first director of the science program at the University in 1865, when the College of Science was established as a department.
Contact: Jessica Sieff, associate director of media relations, 574-631-3933, jsieff@nd.edu
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