Klaus Schulten

Klaus Schulten
Born(1947-01-12)January 12, 1947
DiedOctober 31, 2016(2016-10-31) (aged 69)
Alma materHarvard University
Known forMolecular dynamics, Photosynthesis, High performance computing, Molecular graphics
SpouseZaida Luthey-Schulten
AwardsBiophysical Society National Lecturer, Sidney Fernbach Award
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics, Chemistry, Biophysics, Computational biology
InstitutionsUniversity of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
Doctoral advisorMartin Karplus
Doctoral students
Websitehttp://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~kschulte
External videos
video icon "Klaus Schulten, The Computational Microscope", TEDxUIUC
video icon "Interview Klaus Schulten, 2015 National Lecturer, Biophysical Society

Klaus Schulten (January 12, 1947 – October 31, 2016) was a German-American computational biophysicist and the Swanlund Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[3] Schulten used supercomputing techniques to apply theoretical physics to the fields of biomedicine and bioengineering and dynamically model living systems.[4] His mathematical, theoretical, and technological innovations led to key discoveries about the motion of biological cells, sensory processes in vision, animal navigation, light energy harvesting in photosynthesis, and learning in neural networks.[5]

Schulten identified the goal of the life sciences as being to characterize biological systems from the atomic to the cellular level. He used petascale computers, and planned to use exa-scale computers, to model atomic-scale bio-chemical processes. His work made possible the dynamic simulation of the activities of thousands of proteins working together at the macromolecular level. His research group developed and distributed software for computational structural biology, which Schulten used to make a number of significant discoveries. The molecular dynamics package NAMD and the visualization software VMD are estimated to be used by at least 300,000 researchers worldwide.[4] Schulten died in 2016 following an illness.[6]

  1. ^ Mossman, K. (30 July 2008). "Profile of Axel Brunger". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 105 (31): 10643–10645. Bibcode:2008PNAS..10510643M. doi:10.1073/pnas.0806286105. PMC 2504785. PMID 18667701.
  2. ^ "Klaus Schulten (obituary)". The News-Gazette. November 4, 2016. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
  3. ^ "Klaus Schulten". Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  4. ^ a b "Klaus Schulten Talks about the Evolution of Computational Biophysics". Scientific Computing. March 14, 2014. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference IEEE was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ McGaughey, Steve; Reilly, Maeve (31 October 2016). "Leader in the Field of Biophysics and Computational Modeling Has Died". Beckman Institute News. Retrieved 1 November 2016.