Benoît Roux is an

Amgen Amgen Inc. (formerly Applied Molecular Genetics Inc.) is an American multinational biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. One of the world's largest independent biotechnology companies, Amgen was established in ...

Professor of

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology ...

and

Molecular Biophysics Molecular biophysics is a rapidly evolving interdisciplinary area of research that combines concepts in physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and biology. It seeks to understand biomolecular systems and explain biological function in te ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

. He has previously taught at

University of Montreal A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

and

Weill Medical College of Cornell University The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school located in Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Weill Cornell Medicine is affiliated with NewY ...

. Benoît Roux was a recipient of the 1998

Rutherford Memorial Medal The Rutherford Memorial Medal is an award for research in the fields of physics and chemistry by the Royal Society of Canada. It was dedicated to the memory of Ernest Rutherford. It is awarded once for physics and once for chemistry each year, " ...

in Chemistry, awarded by the Royal Society of Canada.

Life and career

Roux obtained B.Sc. and M.Sc. in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

from the

in 1981 and 1984 respectively. He completed his Ph.D. at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

under the supervision of

Martin Karplus Martin Karplus (born March 15, 1930) is an Austrian and American theoretical chemist. He is the Director of the Biophysical Chemistry Laboratory, a joint laboratory between the French National Center for Scientific Research and the University of ...

, graduating in 1990. He served at the

French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission or CEA (French: Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives), is a French public government-funded research organisation in the areas of energy, defense and securit ...

from 1991 to 1992 and was a Foreign Research Fellow at the Centre D’Etudes. He was a faculty member in the Department of Physics at the Université de Montréal until 1999, when he relocated to

Weill Cornell Medicine The Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University is Cornell University's biomedical research unit and medical school located in Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York City, New York. Weill Cornell Medicine is affiliated with New ...

. He relocated to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the

in 2005. He also serves as a research scientist at the

Center for Nanoscale Materials The Center for Nanoscale Materials is one of five Nanoscale Science Research Centers the United States Department of Energy sponsors. The Center is at Argonne National Laboratory location in Lemont, Illinois. The Center for Nanoscale Materials at ...

, a department of the

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facility is located in Lemont, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and is the lar ...

. He is an accomplished classical pianist, specializing in the work of

Frédéric Chopin Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...

Research

His laboratory at the

mostly uses theoretical techniques, such as classical

molecular dynamics Molecular dynamics (MD) is a computer simulation method for analyzing the physical movements of atoms and molecules. The atoms and molecules are allowed to interact for a fixed period of time, giving a view of the dynamic "evolution" of th ...

, to understand the functioning of

biological system A biological system is a complex network which connects several biologically relevant entities. Biological organization spans several scales and are determined based different structures depending on what the system is. Examples of biological sys ...

s at the molecular level. His research has investigated structure, dynamics, and the function of biological macromolecular systems such as

ion channels Ion channels are pore-forming membrane proteins that allow ions to pass through the channel pore. Their functions include establishing a resting membrane potential, shaping action potentials and other electrical signals by gating the flow of i ...

receptors Receptor may refer to: *Sensory receptor, in physiology, any structure which, on receiving environmental stimuli, produces an informative nerve impulse *Receptor (biochemistry), in biochemistry, a protein molecule that receives and responds to a n ...

, and

protein kinases A protein kinase is a kinase which selectively modifies other proteins by covalently adding phosphate, phosphates to them (Protein phosphorylation, phosphorylation) as opposed to kinases which modify lipids, carbohydrates, or other molecules. Phos ...

. He is a pioneer in the study of

membrane protein Membrane proteins are common proteins that are part of, or interact with, biological membranes. Membrane proteins fall into several broad categories depending on their location. Integral membrane proteins are a permanent part of a cell membrane ...

s using

with explicit phospholipid molecules and solvent. His laboratory has also developed novel computational methods to improve efficiency and applicability of theoretical investigations to

molecular recognition The term molecular recognition refers to the specific interaction between two or more molecules through noncovalent bonding such as hydrogen bonding, metal coordination, hydrophobic forces, van der Waals forces, π-π interactions, halogen ...

phenomena. His work has bridged theory and experiment in

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations. ...

by employing ever-increasing

computational power Moore's law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit (IC) doubles about every two years. Moore's law is an observation and projection of a historical trend. Rather than a law of physics, it is an empiric ...

to further the understanding of the molecular basis of life.

Works

In 1996, he co-authored ''Biological Membranes: A Molecular Perspective from Computation and Experiment'' with Kenneth M. Merz. In 2021, he authored a text on biophysical simulation, ''Computational Modeling and Simulations of Biomolecular Systems''.

Honors, awards, and fellowships

*Journal of Computational Chemistry: Special Issue on Membrane Protein Simulations and Free Energy Approaches in honor of Professor Benoit Roux's 60th birthday *

, Royal Society of Canada (1998) *Fellow of the Biophysical Society of Canada (2017) *Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2021)

References

External links

*
Benoît Roux Laboratory at the University of Chicago
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roux, Benoit 20th-century births Living people American biochemists Canadian biochemists Harvard University alumni Université de Montréal alumni Academic staff of the Université de Montréal Cornell University faculty University of Chicago faculty Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Canadian emigrants to the United States Year of birth missing (living people)