Block elected to American
Academy of Arts and Sciences
Steven M. Block, who
joined the Stanford faculty in September as a professor
in the departments of Applied Physics and Biological
Sciences, recently was elected to the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences. A May 3 Stanford Report story
on six other Stanford faculty who were elected to the
academy inadvertently excluded Block because the academy
listed his affiliation as Princeton.
Formerly at Princeton,
Block used optical tweezers -- lasers that cool and trap
atoms -- to study the action of individual motor-protein
molecules. He performed pioneering studies to elucidate
the movement of kinesin, a microtubule protein, and RNA
polymerase, an enzyme that reads the genetic code. The
studies with kinesin were the first to discern the steps
in its movement and to determine the forces that single
kinesin molecules can generate.
The academy, which honors
intellectual achievement in a wide variety of fields,
selected 154 new members and 15 foreign honorary members
from 89 institutions on April 15. SR
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