Institute of Molecular Biology & Biophysics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland
Heinrich Wieland Prize 2010 for his definition of the molecular architecture of fatty acid synthase multi-enzymes
Research
Ban’s research focuses on understanding the structural basis of how large cellular assemblies function using a combination of crystallographic and electron microscopic experiments. Ban’s structural studies on bacterial and eukaryotic ribosomes and their functional complexes have provided ground-breaking insights into the process of protein synthesis in all kingdoms of life. His studies of giant multienzymes involved in fatty acid synthesis revealed their structure at atomic resolution and suggested the mechanism for substrate shuttling.
Academic Career
Ban was educated at the University of Zagreb. He obtained his PhD degree at the University of California at Riverside in 1994. He went on to a postdoc at Yale University where he spearheaded the X-ray crystallographic structure determination of the large ribosomal subunit. In 2000, he joined the ETH Zurich, where he became a full professor in 2007.
Selected Honours & Memberships
Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award (1999), Newcomb-Cleveland Prize, AAAS (2002), Friedrich-Miescher Prize, Swiss Society for Biochemistry (2004), Latsis Prize (Switzerland) (2005), Roemer lecture, LMU Munich, Germany (2006), LeFevre Memorial Lecture in Biophysics, CNRS Strasbourg, France (2006), Nathan O Kaplan lecture, University of California at San Diego (2007), Roessler Prize (Switzerland) (2009), Heinrich Wieland Prize (2010), Spiridon Brusina medal (Croatia).
German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, EMBO member, honorary member of the Indian Biophysical Society (2012)
Additional Activities
Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the EMBL, President of the tenure committee of the ETH Zurich and of the 29th European Crystallographic Meeting Program Committee (2015)
