Michael Joseph Ezra Sternberg (born 24 June 1951) is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

, where he is director of the Centre for Integrative Systems Biology and Bioinformatics and Head of the

Structural bioinformatics Structural bioinformatics is the branch of bioinformatics that is related to the analysis and prediction of the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules such as proteins, RNA, and DNA. It deals with generalizations about macromole ...

Group.

Education

Sternberg was educated at Hendon County Grammar School and

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and ...

, where he was awarded a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree in natural sciences (theoretical physics) in 1972. He went on to do a

Master of Science A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medici ...

degree in

Computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...

followed by a

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

(

Wolfson College, Oxford Wolfson College () is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Wolfson is an all-graduate college, it prides itself on being one of the most international colleges at Oxford, with part ...

) in 1978 for research supervised by

David Chilton Phillips David Chilton Phillips, Baron Phillips of Ellesmere (7 March 1924 – 23 February 1999) was a pioneering, British structural biologist and an influential figure in science and government. Education and early life David was the son of Charles ...

Career

After

postdoctoral research A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). Postdocs most commonly, but not always, have a temporary acade ...

at the

, Sternberg became a

Lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

in the Department of

Crystallography Crystallography is the branch of science devoted to the study of molecular and crystalline structure and properties. The word ''crystallography'' is derived from the Ancient Greek word (; "clear ice, rock-crystal"), and (; "to write"). In J ...

Birkbeck College, London Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public research university located in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. Established in 1823 as the London Mechanics' ...

. He went on to work at the

Imperial Cancer Research Fund Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organisation. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and ...

and joined Imperial College in 2001.Michael Sternberg, Imperial College London
/ref> He is the Director of the Centre for Integrative Systems Biology and Bioinformatics at Imperial College.

Research

Sternberg's research interests are in

protein structure prediction Protein structure prediction is the inference of the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence—that is, the prediction of its Protein secondary structure, secondary and Protein tertiary structure, tertiary structure ...

protein function prediction Protein function prediction methods are techniques that bioinformatics researchers use to assign biological or biochemical roles to proteins. These proteins are usually ones that are poorly studied or predicted based on genomic sequence data. These ...

, prediction of macromolecular docking and interactions, network modelling for

systems biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological system ...

and logic-based

drug design Drug design, often referred to as rational drug design or simply rational design, is the invention, inventive process of finding new medications based on the knowledge of a biological target. The drug is most commonly an organic compound, organi ...

. He has authored or co-authored several books including ''From Cells to Atoms: an illustrated introduction to molecular biology'',From Cells to Atoms: an illustrated introduction to molecular biology ''Protein Engineering: a practical approach''Protein Engineering: a practical approach and ''Protein Structure Prediction: a practical approach''.Protein Structure Prediction: a practical approach , During his DPhil research at Oxford he worked with

Janet Thornton Dame Janet Maureen Thornton, (born 23 May 1949) is a senior scientist and director emeritus at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), part of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). She is one of the world's leading researcher ...

and they undertook some of the first systematic analyses of

protein structure Protein structure is the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in an amino acid-chain molecule. Proteins are polymers specifically polypeptides formed from sequences of amino acids, which are the monomers of the polymer. A single amino acid ...

. They identified that the beta-alpha-beta unit in proteins is nearly always right handed and this explained remarkable similarities between protein structures. His group, particularly Lawrence Kelley, have developed the widely used Phyre/Phyre2 web server for protein structure prediction. This web resource has been used by over 100,000 distinct users worldwide. Recently his PhD student Chris Yates developed SuSPect, a novel powerful method to predict the phenotypic effects of

Single-nucleotide polymorphism In genetics and bioinformatics, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP ; plural SNPs ) is a germline substitution of a single nucleotide at a specific position in the genome. Although certain definitions require the substitution to be present in a ...

s and other

amino acid Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although over 500 amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the 22 α-amino acids incorporated into proteins. Only these 22 a ...

variants.

Awards and honours

Sternberg was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB) and a Fellow of the Institute of Biology (FIBiol). He is an associate editor of the ''

Journal of Molecular Biology The ''Journal of Molecular Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of molecular biology. It was established in 1959 by Academic Press in London. It is currently published by Elsevier. The editor-in-chief was P ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sternberg, Michael British bioinformaticians Living people 1951 births Academics of Imperial College London