The Meienhofer Award was established in 2007 to annually recognize an individual with a lifetime of achievement in peptide science. The award is named after Johannes Meienhofer, in honor of his transformative discoveries in solid phase peptide synthesis. Notably, Meienhofer's work demonstrated the power of medicinal chemistry in peptide pharmacology and is considered to have laid the foundation of modern synthetic peptide therapeutics.
This year's recipient is Dr. Sam Gellman, the Ralph F. Hirschmann Professor of Chemistry and Vilas Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. He earned his A.B. from Harvard University in 1981 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University, under Ronald Breslow, in 1986. After an NIH post-doctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology, with Peter Dervan, Gellman joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1987. Major interests in Gellman's program involve polypeptides in diverse forms and settings. Specific topics include fundamental studies of non-covalent interactions, elucidation of the origins of peptide and protein folding preferences, development and application of unnatural peptidic oligomers that display protein-like conformational behavior ("foldamers"), creation of new amphiphiles for membrane protein manipulation, and development of biologically active polymers. The work from Gellman’s laboratory has been recognized by the Vincent du Vigneaud Award and Rao Makineni Lectureship from the American Peptide Society, and by the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, the Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry and the Ronald Breslow Award in Biomimetic Chemistry from the American Chemical Society. Gellman is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a Member of the National Academy of Science.
Dr. Gellman will receive his award Tuesday, Sept. 24 during the Boulder Peptide Symposium. Register today!
More information on the Meienhofer Award, including a list of previous recipients, and the Boulder Peptide Symposium can be found online at www.boulderpeptide.org/meienhofer-award.