Joachim Frank

Joachim Frank is a Professor at Columbia University in the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Biological Sciences. He pioneered single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), enabling 3D structural analysis of biomolecules. His work revolutionized structural biology, particularly in studying ribosomes, hemocyanins, and membrane proteins. Frank joined Columbia in 2008 after a 33-year tenure at the Wadsworth Center, NY State Department of Health.

Education: PhD in Physics from Technical University Munich (1970), Postdoctoral fellowships at JPL (Caltech), Berkeley, and Cornell. Key mentors included Walter Hoppe (Munich) and Richard Henderson (Cambridge).

Research Interests: Development of cryo-EM techniques, single-particle averaging, 3D reconstruction algorithms, and applications to molecular machines like the ribosome. His lab created SPIDER, a seminal image processing software system.

Awards: Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2017), HHMI Investigator (1998–2017), Harkness Fellowship (1970), and Humboldt Fellowship (1994).

• Nobel Prize for developing cryo-EM to image biomolecules in atomic detail.
• HHMI funding supported groundbreaking projects on ribosome function and structural biology.

Advising & Grants: Advised over 20 students/postdocs including Rajendra Agrawal (ribosome biochemist) and Christian Spahn (structural biologist). NIH grants sustained decades of cryo-EM research. HHMI provided critical funding for advanced microscopy infrastructure at Columbia.

Labs & Collaborations: Frank Lab at Columbia focuses on cryo-EM applications. Notable collaborations with Jean Lamy (hemocyanin studies), Måns Ehrenberg (ribosome dynamics), and Ruben Gonzalez (single-molecule FRET).