Wayne Hendrickson
Wayne Arthur Hendrickson ( born April 25, 1941 in Spring Valley ( Wisconsin)) is an American biophysicist.
Life and work
Hendrickson grew up on a farm in Wisconsin and studied physics and biology at the University of Wisconsin ( River Falls ) - He graduated in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in 1968 and his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University in biophysics. 1969 to 1984 he worked at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratories ( NRL) in Washington, DC jointly with Jerome Karle. Karle had the phase problem solved in the X-ray crystallography (for which he received the Nobel Prize ), but his solution was not applicable to large biomolecules, what Hendrickson investigated. He solved the problem with different wavelengths from the then evolving synchrotron radiation sources ( multiwavelength anomalous diffraction, MAD and single wavelength anomalous diffraction previously, SAD). There he also developed a prototype computer program PROLSQ to be calculated from the X-ray diffraction patterns of the atomic positions. Parts of the program are used as components of other programs today.
In 1984 he became Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University and Violin Family Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics. Since 1986 he has studied there at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute ( HHMI ).
He applied the x-ray crystallography on a variety of biomolecules. His group managed to structure elucidation, for example, of tyrosine kinases that play a role in signal transduction to the cell, growth factors, respiratory pigments in worms, chaperones and hormones. He uses a synchrotron radiation source ( National Synchrotron Light Source ) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he heads the Department of Biology ( Chief Life Scientist ).
In particular, he explained in the study of the CD4 receptor of the HIV strategy to escape the immune system, although for coupling to the CD4 receptor is a permanent part, the glycoprotein gp120, must be present in the viral always. This part, however, presented by the HIV virus just before the coupling to the T cell. Hendrickson showed that supplied for the conversion of the surface to the presentation of gp120 necessary energy by the formation of the complex, ie, the coupling is energetically favorable.
Since 2010, he studied heat shock proteins and serotonin receptors.
He is the founder of SGX Pharmaceuticals.
Awards (selection)
Hendrickson is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.