Adriaan "Ad" Bax (born 1956) is a Dutch-American molecular biophysicist. He was born in the Netherlands and is the Chief of the Section on Biophysical NMR Spectroscopy at the National Institutes of Health. He is known for his work on the methodology of biomolecular NMR spectroscopy. He is a corresponding member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society.

Adriaan (Ad) Bax
Born
Netherlands
EducationDelft University of Technology
Known forMethods development for NMR, such as RDCs (Residual dipolar coupling)
AwardsBijvoet Medal of the Bijvoet Center for Biomolecular Research (1993)

E. Bright Wilson Award (2000)
National Academy of Sciences (2002)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2002)
Welch Award in Chemistry (2018)
NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing (2018)

Foreign Member of the Royal Society (2024)
Scientific career
FieldsNuclear magnetic resonance, biophysics
InstitutionsNIDDK, National Institutes of Health
Thesis Two-Dimensional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in Liquids  (1981)
Doctoral advisorRay Freeman and Toon Mehlkopf
Websitespin.niddk.nih.gov/bax

Biography

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Bax was born in the Netherlands. He studied at Delft University of Technology where he got his engineer's degree (Ir. degree) in 1978, and Ph.D. degree in applied physics in 1981, after spending considerable time working with Ray Freeman at Oxford University. He worked as a postdoc with Gary Maciel at Colorado State University, before joining the NIH's Laboratory of Chemical Physics in 1983. In 1994 he became correspondent of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[1] He is currently the Chief of the Section on Biophysical NMR Spectroscopy at NIH. In 2002 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in the section on Biophysics and computational biology and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[2] Bax was awarded the 2018 NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing and the 2018 Welch Award in Chemistry.[3] He was elected as a foreign member of the Royal Society in 2024.[4]

Work in NMR spectroscopy

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Bax works in the field of biomolecular NMR spectroscopy, and has been involved in the development of many of the standard methods in the field. He collaborated extensively with fellow NIH scientists Marius Clore, Angela Gronenborn and Dennis Torchia in the development of multidimensional protein NMR.[5] Bax is a pioneer in the development of triple resonance experiments and technology for resonance assignment of isotopically enriched proteins.[6][7] He was also heavily involved in the development of using residual dipolar couplings[8] and chemical shifts[9] for determining RNA[10] and protein structures.[11] Much of his recent work focuses on the roles of proteins in membranes.[12][13][14] He was the world's most cited chemist over two decades (1981-1997).[15][16]

Work during COVID-19 pandemic

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Using laser light scattering, Bax examined how speech-generated droplets and aerosols may be a dominant SARS-CoV-2 transmission mode that may be mitigated by wearing face coverings or face masks.[17][18]

References

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  1. ^ "A. Bax". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 21 July 2015. Retrieved 18 July 2015.
  2. ^ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter B" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  3. ^ "Welch Award in Chemistry". www.welch1.org.
  4. ^ "Outstanding scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2024-05-19.
  5. ^ Clore, Marius G (2011). "Adventures in Biomolecular NMR" (PDF). In Harris, Robin K; Wasylishen, Roderick L (eds.). Encyclopedia of Magnetic Resonance. John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9780470034590. hdl:11693/53364. ISBN 9780470034590.
  6. ^ Ikura M; Kay LE; Bax A (1990). "A novel approach for sequential assignment of 1H, 13C, and 15N spectra of proteins: heteronuclear triple-resonance three-dimensional NMR spectroscopy. Application to calmodulin". Biochemistry. 29 (19): 4659–67. doi:10.1021/bi00471a022. PMID 2372549.
  7. ^ Lewis E Kay; Mitsuhiko Ikura; Rolf Tschudin, Ad Bax (1990). "Three-dimensional triple-resonance NMR spectroscopy of isotopically enriched proteins". Journal of Magnetic Resonance. 89 (3): 496–514. Bibcode:1990JMagR..89..496K. doi:10.1016/0022-2364(90)90333-5.
  8. ^ Tjandra N; Grzesiek S; Bax A (1996). "Magnetic field dependence of nitrogen-proton J splittings in 15N-enriched human ubiquitin resulting from relaxation interference and residual dipolar coupling". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 118 (26): 6264–6272. doi:10.1021/ja960106n.
  9. ^ Kontaxis G; Delaglio F; Bax A (2005). "Molecular Fragment Replacement Approach to Protein Structure Determination by Chemical Shift and Dipolar Homology Database Mining". Nuclear Magnetic Resonance of Biological Macromolecules. Methods in Enzymology. Vol. 394. pp. 42–78. doi:10.1016/s0076-6879(05)94003-2. ISBN 9780121827991. PMID 15808217.
  10. ^ Boisbouvier A; Delaglio F; Bax A (2003). "Direct observation of dipolar couplings between distant protons in weakly aligned nucleic acids". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 100 (20): 11333–11338. Bibcode:2003PNAS..10011333B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1534664100. PMC 208757. PMID 12972645.
  11. ^ Bax A; Grishaev A (October 2005). "Weak alignment NMR: a hawk-eyed view of biomolecular structure". Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 15 (5): 563–70. doi:10.1016/j.sbi.2005.08.006. PMID 16140525.
  12. ^ Maltsev AS; Chen J; Levine RL; Bax A (February 2013). "Site-specific interaction between α-synuclein and membranes probed by NMR-observed methionine oxidation rates". J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135 (8): 2943–6. doi:10.1021/ja312415q. PMC 3585462. PMID 23398174.
  13. ^ Lorieau JL; Louis JM; Bax A (March 2013). "The impact of influenza hemagglutinin fusion peptide length and viral subtype on its structure and dynamics". Biopolymers. 99 (3): 189–95. doi:10.1002/bip.22102. PMC 3532579. PMID 23015412.
  14. ^ Lakomek NA; Kaufman JD; Stahl SJ; Louis JM; Grishaev A; Wingfield PT; Bax A (April 2013). "Internal dynamics of the homotrimeric HIV-1 viral coat protein gp41 on multiple time scales". Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 52 (14): 3911–5. doi:10.1002/anie.201207266. PMC 3610801. PMID 23450638.
  15. ^ "Citation Laureates: Chemistry". In Cites. Archived from the original on 2 November 2002.
  16. ^ "50 Most Cited Chemists 1981-1997". pcb4122.univ-lemans.fr. Archived from the original on 1 March 2003. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  17. ^ Anfinrud, Philip; Stadnytskyi, Valentyn; Bax, Christina E.; Bax, Adriaan (2020-05-21). "Visualizing Speech-Generated Oral Fluid Droplets with Laser Light Scattering". New England Journal of Medicine. 382 (21): 2061–2063. doi:10.1056/nejmc2007800. ISSN 0028-4793. PMC 7179962. PMID 32294341.
  18. ^ Stadnytskyi, Valentyn; Bax, Christina E.; Bax, Adriaan; Anfinrud, Philip (2020-06-02). "The airborne lifetime of small speech droplets and their potential importance in SARS-CoV-2 transmission". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117 (22): 11875–11877. Bibcode:2020PNAS..11711875S. doi:10.1073/pnas.2006874117. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 7275719. PMID 32404416.
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