One Organic Chemist One Day: Prof. Dan Thomas Major

Associate Professor

Telephone:

972-3-5317392

Fax:

972-3-7384053

Email:

majort@biu.ac.il

Office:

Chemistry Building (211) Room # 301

Reception hours:

Anytime

Website:

https://faculty.biu.ac.il/~majord

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

Prof. Major completed his undergraduate studies in chemistry and computer sciences at Bar-Ilan University in 1997. He received his Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University in 2003 under Prof. Bilha Fischer. During his Ph.D. he worked on molecular properties of nucleotide derivatives, theoretical modeling of G-protein coupled receptors, as well as molecular recognition.

He did a post-doctorate at the University of Minnesota under Prof. Jiali Gao during the years 2003-2006. During his post-doctorate he was involved in development and application of theoretical methods for enzyme catalysis.

Since 2007 he is a Faculty member in the Chemistry Department at Bar-Ilan University. His main research interests are in the field of computational chemistry, computational biochemistry, and computational nanotechnology.

ACADEMIC AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

Krill Prize (Wolf Foundation), 2009.
Alon Fellowship, 2008-2010.
Fulbright Scholarship, 2003-2004.
Excellence in teaching, Rector’s Office, Bar-Ilan University, 2001.
Eshkol Scholarship, 2000-2003.
Excellent young scientist from the Israeli Chemical Society, 2001.
Moris Benin Prize, 1999.
Bar-Ilan University Chemistry Department Prize, 1998.
Wolf Foundation Prize, young scientist, 1998.
Rachel and Reuven Jacobs Prize, 1997.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Theoretical study of enzymatic and solution-phase reactions using state-of-the-art combined quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics Hamiltonians
Molecular Dynamics and Monte Carlo simulations of proteins
Development of novel path-integral simulation methodology for the investigation of quantum nuclear effects in solution phase and enzymatic reactions
Development of hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics Hamiltonians
High-level quantum mechanical calculations of small biomolecules
Molecular modeling of membrane proteins
Docking studies of protein-ligand interactions
Theoretical study of Lithium batteries properties (http://www.inrep.co.il)
Theoretical study of photovoltaics