Thomas C. Terwilliger

Biosketch

Tom Terwilliger studied physics at Harvard and molecular biology at UCLA with David Eisenberg and at Berkeley with Daniel E. Koshland, Jr. He was a Presidential Young Investigator at the University of Chicago, a Laboratory Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and is now a Senior Scientist at the New Mexico Consortium. His SOLVE software was the first fully automated method for macromolecular structure analysis using experimental phasing, and his RESOLVE software was the first likelihood-based method for improving crystallographic density maps. One of the founders of the field of Structural Genomics, he led the International Structural Genomics Organization and founded the TB Structural Genomics Consortium. He has served as co-editor for Acta Crystallographica section F and for the Journal of Structural and Functional Genomics. Terwilliger is a Fellow of the American Crystallographic Association, served as its vice-President and President, and was awarded its Trueblood Award. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Research Interests

Tom Terwilliger is a member of the Phenix team, developing algorithms and software that enable structure determination of macromolecules such as proteins and RNA. Recently he has created structure determination tools for analysis of cryo-EM maps and for using AlphaFold predictions in structure determination. He is developing approaches that use AI-based tools to help structural biologists navigate the complex challenges of structure determination.