Levitt, Michael (1947-…), shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry for creating computer models of complex chemical systems. Levitt developed the models in cooperation with the other winners. They are the Austrian-American chemist Martin Karplus and the Israeli-American chemist Arieh Warshel .
Modern computer simulations are based on two different models of physics . They are classical Newtonian physics—pioneered by the English scientist Sir Isaac Newton —and quantum physics . Newtonian physics describes the interaction of matter and energy on scales larger than single atoms . But quantum physics must be used to understand interactions on subatomic scales, scales smaller than atoms.
Some of the earliest computer models used Newtonian physics to model large molecules at rest. Other early models used quantum physics to show chemical reactions between smaller molecules. Both types of programs were limited by the computing power available. Modelling a reaction between large molecules could take days with the technology in use at the time.
In the late 1960’s, Levitt worked on a Ph.D. degree at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge University . The year before he began his work at Cambridge, he had studied at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. At the Weizmann Institute, he and Warshel devised a computer program to model large molecules using Newtonian physics. In 1970, Warshel left Cambridge University to work with Karplus at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. By 1972, the two scientists developed a program that combined the two types of physics. Their program modeled large molecules using Newtonian physics. But it modeled key parts of such molecules using quantum physics. The program could thus model certain large molecules undergoing chemical reactions. After Levitt completed his Ph.D. degree in 1971, he reunited with Warshel at the Weizmann Institute to further develop a program that could model large molecules undergoing a chemical reaction.
Levitt was born on May 9, 1947, in Pretoria, South Africa, to Lithuanian parents. He received a B.S. degree in physics from King’s College London in 1967. After working at the Weizmann Institute until 1974, Levitt returned to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge University as a Staff Scientist. In 1979, he joined the faculty of the Weizmann Institute as a professor of chemical physics. He became a professor of structural biology at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, in 1987.
