Christian Hertweck is a German chemist, deputy director and head of the department of biomolecular chemistry at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Products Research and Infection Biology.

Career

Hertweck studied chemistry at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

and did his doctorate under Wilhelm Boland at the

Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology The Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology is located on Beutenberg Campus in Jena, Germany. It was founded in March 1996 and is one of 80 institutes of the Max Planck Society (Max Planck Gesellschaft). Chemical ecology examines the role of che ...

in 1996–1999. After a research stay (1999–2000) with Heinz G. Floss and Bradley S. Moore at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, US, funded by a Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship for Postdoctoral Researchers ( Alexander von Humboldt Foundation), he started his independent research as head of a junior research group at the

Hans Knöll Institute The Beutenberg Campus is a science and research site situated in southern Jena, Germany. The physician Hans Knöll founded the first biomedical research institute at Beutenberg in 1950. From 1970, it was run as the Central Institute of Microbiolog ...

(2001–2005), which led to a habilitation (

venia legendi Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

) in organic chemistry at the FSU Jena. Since 2006, he has been full professor at the

Friedrich Schiller University Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The un ...

(chair of natural product chemistry) and head of the department of biomolecular chemistry at the

Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathem ...

; in 2008 he became deputy director of the institute.

Area of research

Hertweck's research focuses on specialized metabolites of bacteria and fungi with the intent to identify pharmacologically relevant substances and to understand how they are assembled. Genetic methods (genome mining) and are primarily used to discover new active substances. To modify the structures of natural substances, his research group uses synthetic and enzymatic methods as well as synthetic biology approaches, in which genes from active substance producers are modified or recombined.leibniz-hki.de
Christian Hertweck – Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology e. V. – Hans Knöll Institute (HKI)
retrieved 15 February 2017 He has co-authored over 350 publications and articles in scientific journals. In 2015, he was awarded the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation for his research on bioactive natural products from microorganisms.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hertweck, Christian Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners University of Bonn alumni Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina 1969 births Academic staff of the University of Jena Living people