All posts in BPS News

The Meienhofer Award was established in 2007 to recognize an individual with a lifetime of achievement in peptide science. The biennial 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.

Stephen B. H. Kent, recipient of the 2022 Meienhofer Award, received his first two university degrees in his native New Zealand and his Ph.D. (Organic Chemistry) from University of California, Berkeley. Following postdoctoral work with Bruce Merrifield, Professor Kent held faculty appointments at the Rockefeller University, the California Institute of Technology, and The Scripps Research Institute. He was Founder of Gryphon Sciences and served as its Chief Scientific Officer from 1997-2000. In 2001, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, where since June 2021 he is Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Over the past several decades, Stephen Kent has profoundly shaped the field of peptide and protein chemistry. His many and diverse contributions have altered the way scientists tackle the study of these macromolecules. He pioneered the total chemical synthesis of protein molecules and showed it to be a practical and versatile method for the production of large quantities of high purity material for detailed mechanistic and structural investigations. In particular, the Kent chemical ligation concept together with the native chemical ligation reaction made proteins and enzymes accessible to direct chemical investigation via convergent, chemoselective assembly of unprotected synthetic peptide segments.

Since its introduction in 1994, native chemical ligation has become robust, reliable, and widely used. Efficient total chemical synthesis of a wide range of protein molecules, including the enzymes HIV-1 protease and human lysozyme, the protein hormone human insulin, glycoprotein mimetics of erythropoietin, together with numerous mirror image protein molecules for his pioneering studies of racemic protein crystallography, highlight the practical utility of such approaches. As these examples attest, Stephen Kent has had a gift, throughout his career, for developing new chemistries and for utilizing them to reveal the molecular basis of protein function.

His exceptional achievements in scientific research have previously been recognized by the receipt of major distinctions, including the ACS Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry (1994), the Protein Society E.T. Kaiser Award (2002), the Vincent du Vigneaud (2004) and R. Bruce Merrifield (2009) Awards of the American Peptide Society, the European Peptide Society Rudinger Medal (2010), the Japanese Peptide Society Akabori Medal (2010), the ACS Alfred Bader Award in Bioorganic Chemistry (2011), the Lorne Symposium Leach Medal (2013), the ETH Prelog Medal (2017), and the inaugural Scoffone Award of the Italian Peptide Society (2018).

Dr. Kent will receive his award Tuesday, November 8th 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.

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.

August 6, 2018 (Boulder, CO)  -  The Boulder Peptide Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Jevgenij Raskatov, of the University of California Santa Cruz, has received the 2018 Young Investigator Award.  The Young Investigator Award was established to support promising peptide scientists during the pre-tenure period.

Jevgenij Raskatov is the Assistant Professor in Department of Chemistry at the University of California Santa Cruz. Dr. Raskatov received his B.Sci. in Chemistry from the University of Heidelberg in 2006 and D.Phil in Physical Organic Chemistry from Oxford University in 2009, under the supervision of J. M. Brown. From 2009 to 2014, he was a postdoctoral researcher at California Institute of Technology working under the supervision of Peter Dervan at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.

Jevgenij Raskatov is applying his strong skills in physical organic chemistry and chemical biology to Alzheimer's disease. He has assembled an interdisciplinary research team to investigate Alzheimer's amyloid beta and its interactions with steroid hormones through a wide array of chemical and biological techniques. Upon arriving at UCSC, his team discovered a minute variation within the amyloid beta framework, the substitution of glutamate 22 through aspartate, which delays aggregation of amyloid beta by about tenfold. Remarkably, the two polypeptides differ by one methylene group and are identical in both length and charge. Dr. Raskatov has put forward the innovative hypothesis that the Glu22Asp alteration may have protective features in Alzheimer's disease. He has expanded upon this discovery to build a program of research focused around the roles of chirality in the aggregation of the beta amyloid peptide and has published several papers that build upon his initial discovery. His latest discovery shows that the enantiomeric beta amyloid peptide suppresses the formation of toxic oligomers and gives non-toxic fibrils. This finding has been published and featured in Angewandte Chemie.

In recognition of his professional and scientific achievements, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Boulder Peptide Society is pleased to present the award to Jevgenij Raskatov. Dr. Raskatov will present an oral presentation on his research and formally accept the award during the Boulder Peptide Symposium, Sept 24-27, 2018, in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information and to register for the Boulder Peptide Symposium, visit www.boulderpeptide.org.

Dr. Daniel H. Rich, Emeritus Ralph F. Hirschmann Professor of Medicinal And Organic Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been named as the 2017 recipient of the Meienhofer Award for Excellence in Peptide Sciences. The award will be presented to Dr. Rich on September 27, 2017 at the Boulder Peptide Symposium, which will take place from September 25 to 28, 2017 in Boulder, Colorado, where Dr. Rich will give a presentation of highlights from his prodigious record of research achievements.

We would like to invite you to register for  the meeting to hear Dr. Rich's presentation. Those interested in presenting at the meeting may apply to present online at the www.boulderpeptide.org.

About Professor Daniel H. Rich

Dr. Daniel H. Rich, Emeritus Ralph F. Hirschmann Professor of Medicinal And Organic Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was a General Motors Scholar at the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis from 1960-64 where he received the B. Chemistry degree in 1964. He received his Ph. D. in organic chemistry from Cornell University and held postdoctoral appointments with Vincent du Vigneaud and W. S. Johnson (Stanford) before joining the Faculty in Pharmacy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970. His research focused on the synthesis and conformational analysis of cyclic peptides, and the design and synthesis of inhibitors of therapeutically important enzymes, especially aspartic proteases. His work in the aspartic protease field laid the ground-work for the development of the HIV protease inhibitors used to treat AIDS. He published over 250 articles and trained 36 PhD students and another 100 postdoctoral students; many of his students rose to important research positions in the pharmaceutical industry.

His research accomplishments have been recognized by the 1990 Vincent du Vigneaud Award in Peptide Chemistry, the 1992 ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry Award, the 1992 Research Achievement Award of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, the 1992 George Herbert Hitchings Award for Innovative Methods in the Design and Discovery of Drugs, the 1993 ACS Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry, a WARF University Professorship at UW-Madison in 1994 (which he named after Ralph F. Hirschmann), the E. Volwiler Research Achievement Award from the Amer. Assoc. Colleges Pharmacy in 1995, an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society in 1999 and the R. Bruce Merrifield Award from the American Peptide Society in 1999, and the E. E. Smissman Award from the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry in 2005. In 1993, he was a Senior U.S. Scientist Alexander von Humboldt Scholar in Germany. In 2004, he was awarded an Outstanding Alumni Achievement Award from his alma mater, the Institute of Technology of the University of Minnesota and in 2007 was placed on the ACS Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame.

Professor Rich was elected Teacher of the Year by the UW-Madison Pharmacy graduating class of 1986 for his teaching of Medicinal Chemistry. From 1989 till his retirement in 2006 he lectured each year at the Drew University Residence School in Medicinal Chemistry on the design of enzyme inhibitors and peptidomimetics. In addition, Professor Rich has presented short courses in Medicinal Chemistry to pharmaceutical societies in Sweden, England, Japan and other foreign countries. He presented about 20 invited lectures each year, nationally and internationally. Professor Rich also served as a consultant in drug-design and discovery, especially in the area of design of protease inhibitors, for many major pharmaceutical companies.

Professor Rich served in administrative roles at UW-Madison. From 1976-1980 he was Assistant Dean of Graduate Studies in the School of Pharmacy. He served as elected member of the Physical Sciences Divisional Committee for UW-Madison from 1991-1993 and chaired the committee in 1992-1993. He was appointed to the UW-Madison Graduate School Research Committee (Biology Division) from 1994 to 1997. He also served as a member of the honorary degrees committee for UW-Madison from 1995-1998. He organized and wrote the first Chemistry-Biology Interface training grant for UW-Madison in 1992 and served as its program director, principle investigator and chair of the advisory committee from 1993-2003; the UW-Madison CBI training program remains the largest of its type in the United States. From 2005-2006, he was Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies for the School of Pharmacy.

At the national level, Professor Rich was President of the American Peptide Symposium from 1979-1981, a member of the Bioorganic and Natural Products study section for NIH from 1981-1985 and Chairman of that study section from 1983-1985, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1986, and a council member for the American Peptide Society. He was Associate Editor for the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry from 1988-1992, and was Associate Editor of the ACS journal, Organic Letters, from 1999 through 2005.

Professor Rich was active within the Medicinal Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society. He was Chairman for the Division of Medicinal Chemistry in 1992, served as a member of the Planning Committee, organized two Symposia for the Division, and was an Academic Councilor for the division. He organized the 29th National Medicinal Chemistry Symposium held June 27-July 2, 2004 in Madison WI.

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.

July 24, 2016 (Boulder, CO)  -   The Boulder Peptide Society is pleased to announce that Dr. Albert Bowers, at the University of North Carolina, has received the Young Investigator Award for 2016.  The Young Investigator Award was established earlier in the year to support promising peptide scientists during the pre-tenure period. 

Albert Bowers is Assistant Professor in the Division of Chemical Biology & Medicinal Chemistry at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Albert received his PhD in organic chemistry (synthetic methods) from the University of Illinois at Chicago under the direction of Dr. David Crich. He carried out postdoctoral research in total synthesis at Colorado State University under the direction of Robert M. Williams, then moved to an NIH sponsored fellowship at Harvard Medical School to continue postdoctoral research in biosynthesis under the direction of Christopher T. Walsh. In addition to his appointment in pharmacy at UNC, Albert is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and affiliate member of the Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery.

.

Albert Bowers has published 30 manuscripts including 11 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and 12 since becoming an independent investigator. Albert has received the prestigious Beckman Young Investigator (BYI) Award from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Research in the Bowers lab focuses on chemistry and biotechnology for creating libraries of natural product-like cyclic peptides, in particular by using enzymes from RiPPs (ribosomally translated and posttranslationally modified peptide natural product) pathways. Using an innovative combination of total chemical synthesis, native chemical ligation, and enzymology, his lab was the first to characterize the unique pyridine synthases from the thiopeptide pathways, and answering a long standing question in the biosynthesis of these compounds. Building upon this work, they developed a solid-phase route to thiopeptides with improved activity and solubility. The Bowers lab has also structurally and biochemically characterized a unique E1-like enzyme from the biosynthesis of the pantocin, peptide-derived natural products. By adapting these unique enzymes to various formats of peptide libraries, the Bowers lab aims to develop a combinatorial biosynthesis platform for the discovery of peptide natural product-like inhibitors. 

In recognition of his professional and scientific achievements, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Boulder Peptide Society is pleased to present the award to Albert Bowers. Dr. Bowers will present an oral presentation on his research and formally accept the award at the fall Boulder Peptide Symposium Sept 26-29, 2016 in Boulder, Colorado.

For more information visit www.boulderpeptide.org