Joel L. Sussman (born September 24, 1943) is an Israeli crystallographer best known for his studies on acetylcholinesterase, a key protein involved in transmission of nerve signals. He is the Morton and Gladys Pickman Professor of Structural Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot and its director of the Israel Structural Proteomics Center.
Joel Sussman | |
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Born | 24 September 1943 |
Nationality | Israeli |
Alma mater | Cornell University MIT Hebrew University |
Known for | Studies on acetylcholinesterase |
Awards | Samuel and Paula Elkeles Prize (2005) Teva Founders' Award (2006) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Crystallography |
Institutions | Weizmann Institute of Science |
Sussman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1965, Sussman received his B.A. at Cornell University in math and physics. He received his PhD from MIT in biophysics in 1972, having worked with Cyrus Levinthal. Sussman conducted postdoctoral research in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1972, with Yehuda Lapidot, and in the Duke University in 1973 with Sung-Hou Kim.
Sussman has been a Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science since 1976.
In 1994–99, he was also the director of the Protein Data Bank (PDB) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Sussman was a pioneer of macromolecular refinement, developing CORELS and applying it to yeast tRNAphe.[1][2] He subsequently determined the structures of 'bulge'-containing DNA fragments as models for insertion mutations.[3]
Sussman's current research focuses on nervous system proteins, especially acetylcholinesterase (AChE), whose 3D structure was first determined in his lab. This structure revealed:
He has investigated the molecular basis for halophilicity[9] and halotolerance,[10] shedding light on how proteins function over extreme ranges of salt concentration, with unexpected implications for kidney diseases. He determined the structures of Glucocerebrosidase,[11] a protein defective in Gaucher disease, paving the way to novel therapeutic approaches, and of paraoxonase,[12] a protein relevant to treatment of atherosclerosis.