Byron Rubin has over 30 years experience with a major research institute, prominent universities and a Fortune 20 corporation having primary responsibilities for basic research in macromolecular structure research and drug design using X-ray diffraction as his principal tool. He is now the creator of small and large scale molecular sculptures proteins and other natural macromolecules. He received his PH.D. in chemistry from Duke University and subsequently began using then newly evolving macromolecular X-ray diffraction techniques to determine structure of superoxide dismutase, which was among the first 20 proteins with known three dimensional structures.

He subsequenly solved the structures of other important proteins including xylose isomerase, intrerleukin 1, neutrophil collagenase and carboxyl ester lipase. Among his other accomplishments, Dr. Rubin is also the inventor of a tool known as “Byron Bender”, a tool used in the early days of protein crystallography to accurately bend wire to represent protein backbones. These first physical models made with Byron’s Bender were the foreshadowing of his present career as a molecular sculptor.