Profile of Joachim Frank

摘要

If you were to look at Joachim Frank's recent papers, you might think he had spent his entire career studying how the ribosome converts mRNA into protein. On that subject alone he has enough publications in Nature and Science to span several careers. But in fact, Frank was introduced to the ribosome only after he had become one of the world's foremost experts in digital image analysis and electron microscopy. For his contributions to these fields, and to our understanding of the ribosome—one of the molecular machines that makes life as we know it possible—Frank was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in 2007.