NOBUHIRO GO
Dr. Nobuhiro Go received his BS and MS degrees in physics from Tokyo University in 1961 and 1963, respectively. He became Lecturer in the Department of Physics, Tokyo University in 1964, after which he received his D.Sc. degree in physics from Tokyo University in 1966. He spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Harold Scheraga at Cornell University from 1967. After returning to Tokyo University, he moved to Department of Physics, Kyushu University, in 1971 as Associate Professor. While in Kyushu, he first studied the problem of protein folding from the point of view of statistical physics. His work, including the concept of consistency principle he proposed, gave a deep influence on currently very popular studies of protein folding. Around 1980 he discovered that experimental NMR data of protein molecules in solution contain enough information to determine their conformations in the atomic detail, and invented a theoretical algorithm to actually calculate conformations from experimental data. This work played a key role for opening a new field of protein conformation determination by NMR. Around 1980, he also started theoretical studies of conformational dynamics of proteins in the native state, and have been concerned in elucidating the mechanism of biological functions of proteins in terms of their conformational dynamics.
He served as President of Biophysical Society of Japan (1993-1996), as Vice President of International Union of Pure and Applied Biophysics (1993-1996), as Chairman of Commission on Biological Physics in International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (1996-1999). He has been serving as a member of Japan Science Council (1997-present).