NEWS Within the framework of the UCMR Distinguished Guests Seminars Series, Professor Herbert Waldmann gives a lecture on pseudo-natural products that can be regarded as the human-made equivalent of natural product evolution.
Professor Herbert Waldmann, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology in Germany
ImageRoland BaegeTime: 1 June 14:15-15:15
Venue: Carl Kempe salen (Stora Hörsalen), KBC
Online option: Yes
To view the webinar on Zoom, registration needed: https://umu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_P-W4VAbpRqeobxBZ311mPA
Professor Herbert Waldmann, Max-Planck-Institut für Molekulare Physiologie
Natural products have provided inspiration for chemical biology and medicinal chemistry research. Their success raises the fundamental question whether the particular structural and biological properties of natural products can be translated to structurally less demanding compounds, readily accessible by chemical synthesis and yet still endowed with pronounced bioactivity.
The lecture will describe a logic for the simplification of natural product structure by means of “Biology Oriented Synthesis” (BIOS) and its evolution into the “Pseudo Natural Product” (PNP) concept. Pseudo-natural products can be regarded as the human-made equivalent of natural product evolution, i.e. the chemical evolution of natural product structure. Application of natural product inspired compound collections designed and synthesized following these principles in cell-based phenotypic assays and subsequent identification of the cellular target proteins demonstrate that the BIOS and PNPs may enable innovation in both chemical biology and medicinal chemistry research.
Herbert Waldmann was born in Neuwied, Germany and studied chemistry at the University of Mainz where he received his PhD in organic chemistry in 1985 under the guidance of Horst Kunz. After a postdoctoral appointment with George Whitesides at Harvard University, he completed his habilitation at the University of Mainz in 1991. In 1999 he was appointed Director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology Dortmund and Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Dortmund. His research interests lie in the syntheses of signal transduction modulators and the syntheses of natural product inspired compound libraries and their biological evaluation.
He has been the recipient of the Friedrich Weygand Award for the advancement of peptide chemistry, of the Carl Duisberg Award of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, the Otto-Bayer-Award, the Steinhofer Award of the Steinhofer Foundation, the Max Bergmann Medal, the GSK Award on Chemical Biology, the Hans-Herloff Inhoffen-Medal, the Emil-Fischer-Medal, the Liebig Denkmünze, he is a Member of „Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, Halle/Saale“, of the NRW Akademie der Wissenschaft und der Künste and since 2005 he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2014 he received the Honorary Doctorate (Dr. h. c.) bestowed by Leiden University, NL.
https://www.mpi-dortmund.mpg.de/institute/directors/herbert-waldmann
