Joachim Frank

Joachim Frank is a German-American biophysicist and a pioneer in the field of cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM). His development of computational methods for processing two-dimensional electron microscope images into sharp three-dimensional reconstructions was instrumental in transforming cryo-EM into a major tool for determining the structures of biological macromolecules at near-atomic resolution. For this foundational work, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017 alongside Jacques Dubochet and Richard Henderson. Frank is a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University and a senior investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Early life and education

Frank was born in Siegen, West Germany, and developed an early interest in astronomy and visual perception. He pursued his undergraduate studies in physics at the University of Freiburg before moving to the University of Munich for his master's degree. His doctoral research was conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried under the supervision of Walter Hoppe, a leading figure in electron microscopy. There, Frank began his pioneering work on developing image processing algorithms for analyzing the noisy images produced by electron microscopes, earning his PhD in 1970.

Career and research

After postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Frank joined the New York State Department of Health in Albany as a research scientist in 1975. Over more than two decades there, he developed and refined the key computational techniques of single-particle analysis, including multivariate statistical analysis and angular reconstitution, which allowed the averaging of thousands of randomly oriented particle images to produce a high-resolution three-dimensional structure. In 1998, he joined Columbia University as a professor, where his laboratory applied these methods to study the structure and function of the ribosome, the cellular machine for protein synthesis, in collaboration with researchers like Ada Yonath. His work has provided profound insights into the mechanisms of translation and antibiotic action.

Awards and honors

Frank's contributions have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018. He received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science from the Franklin Institute in 2014. The pinnacle of recognition came in 2017 when he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Jacques Dubochet and Richard Henderson for developing cryo-EM. Other notable honors include the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences and the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience.

Personal life

Frank is a naturalized citizen of the United States. He is married to Carol S. Kesselman, an artist, and has two children. An accomplished writer outside the laboratory, he has authored a literary novel in German, *Licht und Leben*, and a collection of short stories in English. He maintains a strong interest in photography, classical music, and literature, often drawing connections between artistic creativity and scientific discovery.

Selected publications

Frank's extensive body of work includes both seminal methodological papers and key structural studies. Notable publications include "SPIDER and WEB: Processing and Visualization of Images in 3D Electron Microscopy and Related Fields" in the *Journal of Structural Biology*; "A Model of Protein Synthesis Based on Cryo-Electron Microscopy of the *E. coli* Ribosome" in *Nature*; and "The Ribosome at Improved Resolution: New Techniques for Merging and Orientation Refinement in 3D Cryo-Electron Microscopy of Biological Particles" in *Ultramicroscopy*. He is also the author of the influential textbook *Three-Dimensional Electron Microscopy of Macromolecular Assemblies*.

Category:1940 births Category:Living people Category:German biophysicists Category:American biophysicists Category:Nobel laureates in Chemistry Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences