Registration underway for day-long event to honor renowned Purdue scientist

Michael G. Rossmann Download image

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A day-long event will be held to honor a renowned Purdue University scientist who has overseen a transformation in structural biology.

Purdue’s Department of Biological Sciences and the Purdue Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease is presenting “A Celebration of Structural Biology Honoring Professor Michael G. Rossmann” on Sept. 29 in Stewart Center’s Fowler Hall. The event will include multiple sessions of scientific presentations, a group photo, and a reception and dinner in the Shively Club at Ross-Ade Stadium. Registration is open and can be completed here.

Rossmann, the Hanley Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences, has led several research teams that have made key breakthroughs over several decades.

In the mid-1980s, Rossmann led a team of researchers that were the first to map the structure of the human common cold virus. They described the fine architectural details of the rhinovirus, the most frequent cause of the common cold. The discovery led to worldwide recognition of this significant achievement.

More recently, Rossmann was part of a research team that was the first to determine the structure of the Zika virus, which reveals critical insights for the development of effective antiviral treatments and vaccines.

“Michael has been on the faculty at Purdue for more than 50 years and has overseen the transformation in structural biology at the university,” said Richard Kuhn, the Trent and Judith Anderson Distinguished Professor in Science. “He has trained countless graduate students, postdocs, undergraduates and others. This event will be our way of saying, ‘Thank you,’ and reuniting the entire Rossmann scientific family.”

The main focus of Rossmann’s laboratory is to determine the structure of viruses and how they interact with the environment. The Rossmann group of researchers study everything from small RNA animal viruses, such as the common cold, to more complicated lipid, membrane enveloped RNA viruses, such as dengue virus.

Rossmann is a member of the Royal Society of London and the National Academy of Sciences, a recipient of a third National Institutes of Health MERIT Award in 2006, he was an elected fellow in the American Academy of Biology in 2007 and he received the Sackler International prize in Biophysics for 2016. 

Media contact: Brian Peloza, 765-496-9711, bpeloza@purdue.edu 

Source: Richard Kuhn, kuhnr@purdue.edu