Zaida Luthey-Schulten

Zaida Luthey-Schulten
Other names	Zaida Ann Luthey
Spouse	Klaus Schulten
Scientific career
Fields	Chemistry, Molecular physics, Computational physics, Biophysics
Institutions	University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Website	www.chemistry.illinois.edu/faculty/Zaida_Luthey_Schulten.html

External videos
"Simulations of Ribosome Biogenesis on the Whole Cell Level", Zan Luthey-Schulten, NCSAatIllinois
"Towards a Computational Model of a Methane Producing Archaeum", Zan Luthey-Schulten, Institute for Genomic Biology

Zaida Ann "Zan" Luthey-Schulten is the William and Janet Lycan Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ^{[1] [2]} She was promoted to professor in 2004. ^[3] She is also involved with the NASA Astrobiology Institute. ^[4]

Luthey-Schulten develops molecular dynamics simulations, focusing on individual molecules and groups of molecules and the cellular processes occurring within them. Models are verified and improved through comparison to experimental data from independent researchers. In 2011, her group simulated the cellular architecture of an entire cell and its surrounding cytoplasm, the first time that such an extensive and complex cellular system had been modeled. The three-dimensional model combined ribosome data and other descriptors of Escherichia coli . Representing the architectural features of the interior of the cell suggested that crowding might significantly affect reactions that occur within the cells. ^[5] More recent work has focused on the modelling of a methane-producing archaean. ^[6]

Education

Schulten attended the University of Southern California, receiving a B.S. in chemistry in 1969. She then went to Harvard University, from which she was received an M.S. in chemistry in 1972, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics in 1975. ^[1] Her advisors were Donald G. M. Anderson and Roy Gerald Gordon. ^[7] She worked as a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, from 1975 to 1980, and at the department of theoretical physics at the Technical University of Munich from 1980 to 1985. ^[1]

Honors and awards

Schulten is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a fellow of the Advanced Study Institute at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. ^[8] In 2018, she delivered the Francis D. Carlson Lecture in the Department of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University. ^[9] In 2019 was named the Murchison-Mallory Endowed Chair in Chemistry ^[10]

References

1. "Zaida (Zan) Luthey-Schulten". Chemistry at Illinois. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
2. "The Luthey-Schulten Group". University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. School of Chemical Sciences. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
3. "University of Illinois Board of Trustees, Promotions recommended to be effective at the beginning of the 2004-05 academic year".
4. "Zaida Luthey-Schulten". NASA Astrobiology Institute. Archived from the original on 19 January 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
5. "Researchers Make The Leap To Whole-Cell Simulations". Biocompare. March 31, 2011. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
6. Peterson, Joseph R.; Labhsetwar, Piyush; Ellermeier, Jeremy R.; Kohler, Petra R. A.; Jain, Ankur; Ha, Taekjip; Metcalf, William W.; Luthey-Schulten, Zaida (2014). "Towards a Computational Model of a Methane Producing Archaeum". Archaea. 2014 898453. Bibcode:2014Archa201498453P. doi: 10.1155/2014/898453 . PMC   3960522 . PMID   24729742.
7. "Zaida A. Luthey-Schulten". Chemistry Tree. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
8. "Zaida (Zan) Luthey-Schulten". Chemistry at Illinois. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
9. "Carlson Poster 2018" (PDF). Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved 7 May 2018.^{[ permanent dead link ]}
10. "Zaida (Zan) Luthey-Schulten named Murchison-Mallory Endowed Chair in Chemistry | College of Liberal Arts & Sciences | Illinois". las.illinois.edu. Retrieved 2025-10-06.