Education

After serving the Israeli Army (final rank Captain), Warshel attended the Technion, Haifa, where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry, Summa Cum Laude, in 1966. Subsequently, he earned both Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Chemical Physics (in 1967 and 1969, respectively), with Shneior Lifson, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. After his Doctor of Philosophy, he did postdoctoral work at Harvard University until 1972, and from 1972 to 1976 he returned to the Weizmann Institute and worked for the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England.

Career

He is a pioneer in computational studies on functional properties of biological molecules. Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and holds the Dana and David Dornsife Chair in Chemistry at the University of Southern California. Born in 1940 in kibbutz Sde Nahum, Mandatory Palestine.

Served in the Israeli Armored Corps.

In 1976 he joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry at University of Southern California. He was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Achievements

• Warshel is known for his work on computational biochemistry and biophysics, in particular for pioneering computer simulations of the functions of biological systems, and for developing what is known today as Computational Enzymology. He is a member of many scientific organisations, most importantly: Elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences (2009) Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2008) Fellow of the Biophysical Society (2000) Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012) Honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2014) Honorary doctorate of the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University (2015) Annual Award of the International Society of Quantum Biology and Pharmacology (1993) Tolman Medal (2003) President's award for computational biology from the ISQBP (2006) Royal Society of Chemistry Soft Matter and Biophysical Chemistry Award (2012) Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2013) together with Martin Karplus and Michael Levitt for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems". The Founders Award of the Biophysical Society (2014) The 2013 Israel Chemical Society Gold Medal (2014) Arieh Warshel made major contributions in introducing computational methods for structure function correlation of biological molecules, pioneering and co-pioneering programs, methods and key concepts for detailed computational studies of functional properties of biological molecules using Cartesian-based force field programs, the combined Quantum Chemistry/Molecular mechanics (ie, QM/Military Medal) method for simulating enzymatic reactions, the first molecular dynamics simulation of a biological process, microscopic electrostatic models for proteins, free energy perturbation in proteins and other key advances. lieutenant was for the development of these methods that Warshel shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Membership

Royal Society; National Academy of Sciences]

He is a member of many scientific organisations, most importantly:

Elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences (2009).