Robert Stroud

Dr. Robert Stroud is a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he studies the molecular mechanisms of certain key biological processes, as well as signal transduction between processes at the level of protein structure, dynamics, and mechanism. He began his studies at Cambridge University in 1961, studying physics and mathematics, where he first began to study X-ray crystallography and protein structures and continued with his Ph.D. work in physics in the laboratory of J.D. Bernal, where Rosalind Franklin had previously discovered the double-helical structure of DNA. He was one of the first scientists to decode a crystal structure (of tubercidin). He completed his postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology before becoming an assistant professor at Caltech. In 1976, he joined UCSF's faculty and was one of the founders of their structural biology program. He continues to work towards improving drug design and understanding of biological molecules. He is part of the National Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Medicine, and has received numerous honors and awards for his pioneering work in X-ray crystallography, biophysics, and structural biology.