Prof. Nenad Ban

Prof. Nenad Ban Inst. f. Molekularbiologie u. Biophysik HPK H 3 Schafmattstr. 20 8093 Zürich SWITZERLAND Phone: +41 44 633 27 85 Fax: +41 44 633 12 46 E-Mail:

Nenad Ban was born in Zagreb, Croatia and educated at the University of Zagreb where he obtained a BS degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. He obtained his PhD degree in the US at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of California at Riverside (1990-1994) where his research focused on structural immunology and virology. His interest in large macromolecular assemblies led him for his postdoctoral work in 1995 to the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University where he spearheaded the X-ray crystallographic structure determination of the large ribosomal subunit, a 1.5 MDa ribonucleoprotein complex, and determined its atomic structure in 2000 as part of the group in the laboratory of Thomas Steitz. These results revealed that the active site of the ribosome is formed out of RNA demonstrating that the ribosome is a ribozyme. The structure also opened up new possibilities for the development of new and improvement of existing antibiotics since many clinically available antibacterial drugs inhibit the ribosome. Based on the structure of the large ribosomal subunit the largest biotech startup company Rib-X was established in the US in 2000 and has been operating successfully ever since, developing several new antibiotics that are currently in clinical studies.
In 2000, Nenad Ban was appointed assistant professor of structural molecular biology at the ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) becoming full professor in 2007. The main goal of the research in his laboratory is to study structure and function of large cellular assemblies using a combination of crystallographic, electron microscopic and biochemical experiments. This research has significantly impacted two fields, protein synthesis and fatty acid synthesis. In particular, the pioneering structural and mechanistic studies of various ribosomal complexes involved in co-translational protein processing, folding, and targeting provide critical insights into this aspect of ribosomal function. The work on giant multifunctional enzymes involved in fatty acid synthesis offer first mechanistic insights into substrate shuttling and delivery in such megasynthases, with direct implications on our understanding of polyketide synthases and non-ribosomal peptide synthases. Nenad Ban is a member of EMBO and the German Academy of Sciences and the recipient of several prizes and awards including the Roessler prize of the ETH Zurich, the Latsis prize of the Latsis foundation, the Friedrich Miescher Prize of the Swiss Society for Biochemistry, and the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize.

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