Dirk Trauner (born 17 April 1967 in

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital ...

) is an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

Education and training

From 1986 to 1991 Trauner studied

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

and

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

. From 1992 to 1995 he studied chemistry at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

and completed his diploma under Johann Mulzer, whom he followed to Frankfurt and subsequently Vienna as an assistant. In 1997 he completed his PhD under Mulzer at the University of Vienna summa cum laude. From 1998 to 2000 he was a postdoc under Samuel J. Danishefsky at the

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 52 National Cancer Institute– ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. In 2000 he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where from 2000 to 2006 he was assistant professor and from 2006 to 2010 associate professor, with additional affiliation to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 2005 to 2008. From 2008 to 2017 he was professor for chemical biology and genetics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He currently resides as the Janice Cutler Chair in Chemistry at New York University. He is also an adjunct professor of neuroscience at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, a member of the Neuroscience Institute and of the Perlmutter Cancer Center.

Research

Trauner is a leader in the fields of

photopharmacology Photopharmacology, an emerging approach in medicine, involves activating and deactivating photoswitchable molecules with light for target drug delivery. Clinicians use the energy of light to change the shape and chemical properties of a drug, res ...

and natural product total synthesis. His view is that many biologically active substances even of low molecular weight have not yet been discovered, and he has directed his research group to perform the

total synthesis Total synthesis is the complete chemical synthesis of a complex molecule, often a natural product, from simple, commercially-available precursors. It usually refers to a process not involving the aid of biological processes, which distinguishes i ...

of such compounds. Continuing his pioneering work in photopharmacology, his research group is developing chemical tools that are useful in neuroscience and cell biology but also hold promise as precision therapeutics, controlling the activity and presence of biologically active substances using light.

Distinctions (selected)

* 2021 ACS Cope Scholar Award * 2017 Member, Leopoldina – German National Academy of Sciences * 2016 * 2016

Emil Fischer Medal Emil or Emile may refer to: Literature *''Emile, or On Education'' (1762), a treatise on education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau * ''Émile'' (novel) (1827), an autobiographical novel based on Émile de Girardin's early life *''Emil and the Detective ...

* 2013 Kitasato Microbial Chemistry MedalLeopoldina Trauner CV
/ref> * 2008 Roche Excellence in Chemistry Award * 2005 Novartis Young Investigator Award * 2004 Amgen Young Investigator Award

References

External links

The Trauner Research Group
Living people Austrian chemists 1967 births Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina {{Austria-scientist-stub