Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland

Research

Nenad Ban has made outstanding contributions to the fields of biochemistry and structural biology through his studies of the mechanisms of protein synthesis. He revealed unique architectural features of eukaryotic ribosomes and advanced our understanding of eukaryotic translation and protein biogenesis, including co-translational processing, folding, and targeting of proteins to biological membranes. In studying mitochondrial ribosomes, he revealed their unusual structure, discovered how they initiate and terminate protein synthesis, and identified features that make them specialized for exclusive synthesis of membrane proteins in human mitochondria. Additionally, working on giant multifunctional enzymes involved in fatty acid synthesis, the Ban laboratory provided groundbreaking insights into the function of cellular assemblies involved in central metabolic processes. Their research explained the mechanism of substrate shuttling and delivery in these and related multienzymes.

Academic Career

Nenad Ban is a professor of structural molecular biology at ETH Zurich. He studied molecular biology and biochemistry at University of Zagreb, Croatia, and in 1994 obtained his PhD in biochemistry with a minor in computer science from the University of California at Riverside, USA. Following his stay at Yale University as a postdoctoral fellow and a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award group leader, he became assistant professor at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, in 2000 and was promoted to full professor in 2007. Nenad Ban received several awards including the Heinrich Wieland Prize, the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, the Jung Prize for Medicine, and the Otto Naegeli Prize for Medical Research. He is an elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, EMBO, the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.