Ruth Nussinov, Ph.D.
Ruth Nussinov, Ph.D., Senior Principal Investigator with the NCI Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research and CCR’s Cancer Innovation Laboratory, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The Academy was established in 1863 with a mission to recognize and elevate outstanding science and to foster the broad understanding of science. Members are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
Nussinov is a computational structural biologist. She has made significant contributions to the field of RNA folding with her dynamic programming algorithm, which remains a leading method in the field today. In the 1990s, she introduced the groundbreaking concept of “conformational selection and population shift,” challenging the existing belief that only one or two protein conformations are functional. Her idea, which has since been confirmed by numerous experiments, explains how proteins can exist in multiple forms and how their dynamic shifts are crucial for functions such as catalysis and regulation. This paradigm shift has advanced our understanding of molecular recognition, signaling and diseases mechanisms, including cancer and amyloid diseases, and has influenced the development of allosteric drugs. Her recent work includes developing software for kinase drug selectivity.
