Nenad Ban is a biochemist born in

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slove ...

, Croatia who currently works at the

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , aca ...

, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, as a professor of Structural Molecular Biology. He is a pioneer in studying gene expression mechanisms and the participating protein synthesis machinery.

Career

Nenad Ban was born in 1966 in Zagreb. His parents, Jasna and Zvonimir, were scientists and university professors. He received a degree in

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

at the

Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb Faculty of Science ( hr, Prirodoslovno-matematički fakultet,lit. the Faculty of natural sciences and mathematics abbr: ''PMF'') is a faculty of the University of Zagreb that comprises seven departments - biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics ...

and decided to continue with his studies in the United States where he obtained a PhD degree at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. Th ...

in the laboratory of Alexander McPherson. He carried out his postdoctoral studies at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the worl ...

in the laboratory of

Thomas A. Steitz Thomas Arthur Steitz (August 23, 1940 – October 9, 2018) was an American biochemist, a Sterling Professor, Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, ...

. Already in high school he developed an interest in understanding the mechanisms of protein synthesis, which led him to the laboratory of Prof. Zeljko Kucan and Ivana Weygand in Zagreb where he investigated tRNA synthetases, enzymes that charge

tRNAs Transfer RNA (abbreviated tRNA and formerly referred to as sRNA, for soluble RNA) is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 76 to 90 nucleotides in length (in eukaryotes), that serves as the physical link between the mRNA and the amino ...

with amino acids to prepare them as substrates for protein synthesis on the ribosome. These interests brought him to the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at

where he determined the atomic structure of the large ribosomal subunit by

X-ray crystallography X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angle ...

, as part of the group in the laboratory of

. These results demonstrated that the ribosome is a

ribozyme Ribozymes (ribonucleic acid enzymes) are RNA molecules that have the ability to catalyze specific biochemical reactions, including RNA splicing in gene expression, similar to the action of protein enzymes. The 1982 discovery of ribozymes demonst ...

. Since 2000 Nenad Ban is a professor of structural molecular biology at the

. (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). His group is investigating protein synthesis both in terms of the chemistry of the process and with respect to how it is regulated, how proteins co-translationally fold, how they are co-translationally modified, and how they are targeted to membranes and sorted to different cellular compartments. Nenad Ban’s group at ETH Zurich revealed the mechanisms behind the key steps in eukaryotic cytoplasmic and mitochondrial translation with a broad impact on a wide range of fields in biology, chemistry and biomedicine. His group also contributed to our understanding of giant multifunctional enzymes involved in fatty acid synthesis offering mechanistic insights into substrate shuttling and delivery in such megasynthases.

Honors

Nenad Ban is a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...

, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), the German Academy of Sciences, the

Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Croatica, hr, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, abbrev. HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia. HAZU was founded under patronage of the Croatian bishop Jo ...

and the recipient of several prizes and awards including the

Heinrich Wieland Prize The Heinrich Wieland Prize is awarded annually by the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation for outstanding research on biologically active molecules and systems in the areas of chemistry, biochemistry and physiology as well as their clinical importance. ...

, Rössler Prize of the ETH Zurich, the Latsis prize, the Friedrich Miescher Prize of the Swiss Society for Biochemistry, Spiridon Brusina medal, the AAAS

Newcomb Cleveland Prize The Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is annually awarded to author(s) of outstanding scientific paper published in the Research Articles or Reports sections of ''Science''. Established in 192 ...

. and the Jung Prize.

Personal life

Ban is married to Eilika Weber, a German scientist whom he met in the United States during his doctoral study. They have two sons, Arvid and Ivo.

References

External links

Nenad Ban Laboratory Website at ETH Zurich Alexander McPherson Laboratory Website at UC Irvine Thomas Steitz Laboratory Website at YaleNenad Ban Leopoldina Profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ban, Nenad Living people 1966 births 21st-century Croatian scientists Swiss biologists Academic staff of ETH Zurich Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb alumni Yale University alumni Croatian biochemists Croatian expatriates in the United States Croatian expatriates in Switzerland Scientists from Zagreb Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences