Chemist Jörn Piel receives Inhoffen Medal 2023
HZI and Technische Universität Braunschweig honour specialist for marine natural products
Many active substances used in medicine are based on naturally occurring products. However, the producers of these substances often do not grow or grow poorly under laboratory conditions. This also applies to marine invertebrates such as sponges, which live in close association with bacteria. Aided by synthetic biology, complex natural substances can also be engineered in the laboratory independently from their natural producers. For the scientific work on natural products from marine sources, the Friends of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and the Technische Universität Braunschweig are awarding Prof Jörn Piel from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, Switzerland, the Inhoffen Medal 2023. The award ceremony took place on 8 June 2023 at the HZI in Braunschweig.
The research group of Inhoffen Medal 2023 winner Prof Jörn Piel investigates how structurally complex natural products are produced. “Prof Jörn Piel is an outstanding scientist who has done ground-breaking work on microbial natural products research. His molecular biology-based work, for example on uncultured bacteria, opens up new areas of research that have received and are continuing to receive great attention worldwide”, says laudator Prof Stefan Schulz from the Institute for Organic Chemistry at the Technische Universität Braunschweig about the awardee.
Jörn Piel studied chemistry at the University of Bonn and received his doctorate there in 1998. He then conducted research at the University of Washington, USA, and led research groups at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena and at University of Bonn. Since 2013, Piel has headed the “Bacterial Natural Products” group at the Institute of Microbiology at ETH Zurich.
The Inhoffen Prize, awarded by the Friends of HZI and endowed with 8000 euros, is considered the most prestigious German award in the field of natural products chemistry. It is awarded as part of the Inhoffen Lecture, a joint ceremony of the HZI, the Technische Universität Braunschweig and the Friends of HZI.
During the ceremony, the Friends of HZI also awarded three PhD awards to young scientists at the HZI. Dr Alaa Alhayek (HZI site Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS)), Dr Chunlei Jiao (HZI site Helmholtz Institute for RNA-based Infection Research (HIRI)) and Dr Bernard C. Silenou (HZI site Braunschweig) were honoured for their doctorates completed in 2022. The HIPS and the HIRI are sites of the HZI in cooperation with Saarland University and Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, respectively.
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