Prize Recipient

Carlos Bustamante
University of California, Berkeley

Citation:

"For his pioneering work in single molecule biophysics and the elucidation of the fundamental physics principles underlying the mechanical properties and forces involved in DNA replication and transcription."

Background:

Carlos Bustamante is a professor in the Departments of Physics and Molecular & Cell Biology of the University of California, Berkeley. He obtained his B.S. degree from Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru in 1973 and a M.S. from San Marcos University, also in Lima, in 1975. He received a Ph.D. degree from Berkeley in 1981 working with Ignacio Tinoco Jr. In 1982 he joined Chemistry Dept. of the University of New Mexico as an assistant professor and becoming a full professor in 1989. In 1991 he joined the Chemistry Department at the University of Oregon and became investigator in the Institute of Molecular Biology of that institution where he remained until 1998 where he took up his present position at Berkeley. Carlos Bustamante's research is concerned with the development of novel methods of single molecule manipulation and detection and their application to investigate biochemical process. Optical tweezers, atomic force microscopy and single molecule fluorescence experiments are used in his laboratory to study protein and RNA folding, the mechanical properties of biomolecules and the mechanochemistry of molecular motors. Dr. Bustamante was named a Searle Scholar in 1984, an Alfred P. Sloan fellow in 1985, State of New Mexico Eminent Scholar in 1989, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator from 1994 to 1998 and again in 2000 to the present. He is Chair of the Advanced Microscopy Department of the Physical Biosciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

Selection Committee:

James J. Collins (Chair), William L Ditto Paul Hansma, Katya Lindenberg, Ken Dill