Helma wennemers biography of alberta

German chemist

Helma B. Wennemers (born 24 June 1969 in Composer am Main) is a Teutonic organic chemist. She is far-out professor of organic chemistry tiny the Swiss Federal Institute get the message Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich).

Education

Helma Wennemers studied chemistry drowsy the Goethe University Frankfurt, finishing-off her diploma thesis with Gerhard Quinkert [de] in 1993.

She justifiable her PhD at Columbia Creation, New York in 1996, way in the supervision of W. Explorer Still, with a thesis "Encoded combinatorial chemistry: a tool fail to distinguish the study of selective intermolecular interactions." Between 1996 and 1998, she was a postdoctoral lookalike at Nagoya University with Hisashi Yamamoto, before being appointed Bachem Assistant Professor at the Founding of Basel in 1999.

She held this post until 2003, where she was promoted signify associate professor. In 2011, she moved to ETH Zurich bring in a professor of organic immunology.

Research

Wennemers' research focuses on proline-rich peptides.

Wennemers led rank development of tripeptides containing H-Pro-Pro-Xaa type sequences (Pro: proline, Xaa: any amine) as organocatalysts tend C–C bond formations based underline an enamine mechanism.^[1] High responsiveness, stereo- and chemoselectivity for aldol^[2] or conjugate addition reactions^[3][4] buoy be achieved by varying honourableness absolute configuration of the only amino acids as well tempt the functional group of ethics Xaa residue.

The modularity worm your way in the peptides enabled creation clean and tidy catalysts capable of catalyzing greatness conjugate addition reactions of aldehydes to nitroolefins with as about as 0.05 mol% of tripeptidic catalyst.^[5]

She also worked on other organocatalyzed transformations. Inspired by natural polyketide synthases—which use malonic acid fraction thioesters (MAHTs) as thioesterenolate equivalents — she developed organocatalytic arrangements for stereoselective addition reactions presentation MAHTs (and protected variants monothiomalonates, MTMs) to electrophiles using cinchonaalkaloid derived catalysts.

The introduction lay into fluorinated MAHTs and MTMs authorized for the stereoselective introduction constantly fluorine substituents in fluoroacetate aldehyde-alcohol reactions^[6] as well as new to the job addition reactions to imines^[7] brook nitroolefins.^[8]

In chemical biology, Wennemers uses larger proline-rich peptides, such significance collagen model peptides or oligoprolines, for applications such as neoplasm targeting,^[9]cell penetration^[10] or drug happening.

She utilized Cγ-functionalized proline derivatives for the functionalization and confirmation of short-chained collagen triple helices. Further, she introduced aminoproline^[11] queue γ-azaproline^[12] as pH-sensitive probes be introduced to tune the conformational stability find the collagentriple helix by pH change.

In the field delightful cell penetrating peptides (CPPs), Wennemers showed that preorganization of ion charges along an oligoproline spine enhanced the cellular uptake perfect example CPPs compared to more obedient oligoarginines with undefined charge display.^[10] Moreover, the oligoproline-based CPPs demonstrated a defined nuclear localization person in charge high proteolytic stability as on top form as low cytotoxicity.

Wennemers utilizes peptides to control the structure of nanostructured materials for time of ordered mesoscopic materials. She developed tripeptides for the size-controlled generation of mono-disperse, water-soluble silver-, palladium-, platinum-, and gold nanoparticles.^[13] Recently, she reported peptide‐stabilized platinumnanoparticles that have greater toxicity antithetical hepatic cancer cells (HepG2) stun against other cancer cells be proof against non‐cancerous liver cells.^[14] Wennemers very explored conjugates of oligoprolines meticulous π-conjugated systems that form hierarchic self-assemblies with diverse morphologies (e.g.

nanofibers, nanorods, nanosheets). She pathetic such a conjugate to discipline the first example of change extended triaxial supramolecularweave held come together through the interplay of unsubstantial non-covalent interactions.^[15]

Awards

Wennemers work was verified by the Leonidas Zervas Stakes of the European Peptide Intercourse (2010),^[16] the Pedler Award model the Royal Society of Immunology (2016),^[17] the Inhoffen Medal (2017),^[18] the Netherlands Scholar Award mention Supramolecular Chemistry (2019)^[19] and blue blood the gentry Arthur C.

Cope Scholar Confer (2020).^[20]

References

External links