CSB Staff Profile

Research Scientist in the Center for Structural Biology

Ron Rubin is a new addition in the Center for Structural Biology (CSB). The CSB provides U-M researchers access to expertise in structural biology and includes a high-throughput protein expression lab crystallization screening resources and X-ray facilities. Rubin is responsible for protein purification, crystallization and structure determination of a variety of biological macromolecules. He has an extensive background in X-ray crystallography and structure-based drug design.

His early interest in the structure and function of the molecules involved in protein biosynthesis included graduate work at the University of Wisconsin on the structure of transfer RNA. He moved to Cambridge, England, where he worked with David Blow on the structure of tyrosyl tRNA synthetase. Another move to Aarhus, Denmark a few years later provided the opportunity to pursue research which culminated in the first structure of a G-protein, that of Elongation Factor Tu.

Rubin moved to Genentech to work on the structure of interferons and then to the National Cancer Institute, where he continued exploring the structure and function of interferon and other molecules involved in the immune response. He established the Crystallography Laboratory at what was then Warner-Lambert Parke-Davis Research in Ann Arbor and was influential in the company- wide effort to use the crystal structures of protein-drug complexes to design new pharmaceuticals with improved potency and selectivity using a technique which came to be known as Structure Based Drug Design.

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