Professor Harold A. Sheraga

Professor Harold A. Scheraga received his Ph.D. in 1946 from the Duke University in Durnham. From 1946 to 1947 he was an American Chemical Society Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School, and since 1947 he has been working at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., where he was the Dean of Faculty of Chemistry. He retired in 1992, after receiving the Todd Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, awarded for outstanding achievements in chemistry (professor Alexander Todd - chemist, Nobel Prize winner). Professor Sheraga still remains an active scientist, who supervises research projects financed by the American government.

The scientific works of professor Scheraga include: hydrodynamic properties of proteins, helix-coil transition in polypeptide and polynucleotide chains, mechanism of interaction of thrombin and fibrinogen, influence of hydrogen bonds on protein structure and reactivity, structure of water in hydrophobic interaction and the experimental determination of folding pathways of homologous proteins and ribonuclease, as well as development of methods and algorithms predicting the three-dimensional fibrous and globular proteins structure on the basis of their amino acids sequence.

Professor Scheraga Professor Scheraga has received numerous national and international awards including: the Linderstrøm-Lang Medal, the Pauling Medal, and the Nicolaus Copernicus Medal and honorary doctorates of Israel Institute of Technology, National University of San Luis (Argentina), University of Rochester (USA), and University of Gdansk. Moreover, he is a member of United States National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hungarian Biophysics Society, The Society of Polymer Science in Japan, and others.

The professor is a member of drafting committees of a number of significant scientific journals (such as: Biochemistry, Biopolymers, Journal of Computational Chemistry, Journal of Protein Chemistry, as well as TASK Quarterly - scientific bulletin in Gdansk). He is a co-author of more than 1200 publications. Hirsch index equalled 105 in 2007, what placed him at the eighth position of global ranking of chemists of any specialty.

Professor Harold A. Scheragawill be hosted at the Warsaw University of Technology from 21st October to 4th November 2009. Professor Andrzej Koliński and Professor Stanisław Janeczko will take care of Professor H. Scheraga during his presence at the University.