Martha L. Ludwig

Ludwig died in Ann Arbor, Michigan on November 27, 2006 from colon cancer.

In 1967, she became an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and an assistant research biophysicist in the Biophysics Research Division at the University of Michigan. As a faculty member in the Biophysics Research Division, she joined a group of other faculty including Vincent Massey (enzymologist) and Graham Palmer; focusing on studying flavoproteins. Ludwig focused on studying flavodoxin in her laboratory. In 1969, Ludwig had her first publication which focused on the crystallization of both oxidized and semiquinone forms of protein from Clostridium pasteurianum. Ludwig also worked on superoxide dismutase during the 1980s with James Fee, a colleague from the Biophysics Research Division at the University of Michigan. In 1990, Ludwig continued to collaborate with University of Michigan colleagues including Vincent Massey, to uncover why there was a very low potential associated with the reduction of semiquinone. Ludwig started a collaboration with Richard Swenson from Ohio State University, where they examined the redox state of a flavodoxin from Clostridium beijerinckii.

While studying at Berkeley, Ludwig took Howard Schachman's course in physical biochemistry; she later credited this course with setting the direction for her own research. She completed her Ph.D. thesis on the biosynthesis of ergothionine at Cornell University Medical College, and followed this with postdoctoral studies at Harvard Medical School from 1957 to 1959 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1959 to 1962. In 1962 Ludwig's interests switched from classical techniques of biochemistry to the then-emerging field of X-ray crystallography and she joined the laboratory of William Lipscomb to work on the structure of carboxypeptidase. Ludwig determined the structure of the enzyme carboxypeptidase A, one of the first enzyme structures to be described.

Ludwig attended Cornell University and received a B.A. in chemistry in 1952. She received her master's degree in biochemistry in 1955 from the University of California, followed by a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Cornell Medical College in 1956. While at Cornell, Ludwig conducted her Ph.D. research in biochemistry under Nobel Laureate Vincent du Vigneaud and studied the biosynthesis of ergothionine in D.B. Melville's laboratory.

Martha Ludwig (August 16, 1931 – November 27, 2006) was an American macromolecular crystallographer. She was the J. Lawrence Oncley Distinguished University Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of Michigan.

Ludwig was born on August 16, 1931 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father was Leon Ludwig, a physicist, and her mother was Agnes Sutermeister Ludwig, a worker in the social services. Soon after her birth, her father accepted a job as the director of the Westinghouse facility, resulting in the family move to Buffalo, NY. As a child in school, Ludwig found a passion for mathematical puzzles and hoped to become a scientist in the future.