Hiro Tsuruta, born in Sasebo, Japan on 18 August 1962, received his doctorate in biophysics in the Department of Material Science, Faculty of Science, at Hiroshima University in 1990. After a post-doctoral year spent mainly at the Jichi Medical University he moved to the United States in 1991 and joined SSRL and the Department on Chemistry at Stanford University as a Staff Scientist in the Structural Molecular Biology program.
His long involvement with synchrotron radiation research started during his graduate thesis work, much of it done at the Photon Factory. There he was engaged in several collaborative research projects, while focusing on the development of time-resolved solution scattering using a stopped-flow rapid mixer for sub-zero temperatures. Building on this work, he was later involved in a number of pioneering studies of dynamical structural changes in a wide variety of systems including virus particles, molecular chaperon proteins, kinases, heatshock proteins and transcription regulators.
During his 20-year career at SSRL Hiro led the effort to develop the structural biology SAXS beam line BL4-2 into one of the most highly performing and productive experimental facilities of its kind in the world today, enabling structurale studies for many systems of biomedical importance. Over the years Hiro mentored and helped a large number of SSRL SAXS users, providing everything from intellectual advice to dealing with mundane technical problems. Especially towards the end of his life he became also much engaged in the broader scientific community by serving on several scientific advisory committees and heading the SAXS Special Interest Group of the American Crystallographic Association.
