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.
Dr. Fernando Albericio, recipient of the 2024 Meienhofer Award, began his peptide journey almost 50 years ago in his native Barcelona. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Barcelona (UB) under the guidance of Ernest Giralt. After several postdoctoral stays at Tufts University (Victor Najjar); Université d’Aix-Marseille (Jurphass van Rietschoten); and University of Minnesota (George Barany) he returned to Barcelona in 1985 as an Associate Professor at the UB. From 1992-94, he was Director of Peptide Research at Millipore in Boston. He rejoined the UB after this period and was promoted to Full Professor in 1995. From 2003-2015, he was Group Leader at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB). From 2014-2015, he was founder Rector of Yachay Tech, a university in Ecuador. Currently, he is a Research Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) and an Emeritus Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Barcelona (Spain).
His primary research interests cover practically all aspects of peptide synthetic methodology; the synthesis of peptides and small molecules with therapeutic activities (cancer and infectious diseases); and peptide-based drug delivery systems. Most recently, he has been working on greening solid-phase peptide synthesis processes. He has published over 1000 scientific articles and graduated more than 75 Ph.D. students.
Fernando has received several awards, including the Vincent du Vigneaud and the Murray Goodman Awards from the American Peptide Society, and the Leonidas Zervas from the European Peptide Society.
Dr. Albericio will receive his award Tuesday, September 17th during the 2024 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.