Julius Rebek Jr. (born Gyula Rebek on April 11, 1944) is a Hungarian-American
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 ...
and expert on
molecular self-assembly.
Rebek was born in Beregszász (present-day
Berehove
Berehove ( uk, Берегове; hu, Beregszász) is a city located in Zakarpattia Oblast (province) in western Ukraine, near the border with Hungary. It is the cultural centre of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.
Serving as the administrativ ...
, Ukraine), which at the time was part of
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...
, in 1944 and lived in Austria from 1945 to 1949. In 1949 he and his family
immigrated to the United States
Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. In absolute numbers, the United States has a larger immigrant population than any other country in the world, ...
and settled in Topeka,
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...
where he graduated from Highland Park High School. Rebek graduated from the
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. T ...
with a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
degree in chemistry. Rebek received his
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Th ...
degree and his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
in
organic chemistry
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, ...
from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
in 1970. There he studied
peptide
Peptides (, ) are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. Long chains of amino acids are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty amino acids are called oligopeptides, and include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides.
...
s under
D. S. Kemp.
Rebek was an
assistant professor
Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada.
Overview
This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree
A docto ...
at the
University of California at Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
from 1970 to 1976. There he developed the three-phase test for
reactive intermediates. In 1976, he moved to the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...
, where he developed cleft-like structures for studies in
molecular recognition
The term molecular recognition refers to the specific interaction between two or more molecules through noncovalent bonding such as hydrogen bonding, metal coordination, hydrophobic forces, van der Waals forces, π-π interactions, halogen ...
. In 1989 he returned to MIT, where he became the Camille Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry and devised
synthetic,
self-replicating molecules. In July 1996, he moved his research group to the
Scripps Research Institute
Scripps Research, previously known as The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), is a nonprofit American medical research facility that focuses on research and education in the biomedical sciences. Headquartered in San Diego, California, the institu ...
to become the director of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, where he continues to work in molecular recognition and self-assembling systems.
Rebek is a member of the
National Academy of Sciences.
Three-phase test
Rebek's independent research began in the 1970s, with a method to detect reactive intermediates. This was invented through application of
polymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
-bound reagents. A precursor for the reactive intermediate was covalently attached to one solid phase while a trap was attached to a second such support. When transfer takes place between the solid phases, it requires the existence of a reactive intermediate, free in solution as shown below. Among the reactive species detected by this "Three Phase Test" were cyclobutadiene, singlet oxygen, monomeric metaphosphate, and acyl imidazoles.
Molecular machine
A model of the
Pauling principle - catalysis by maximum binding to the transition state – was devised in 1978. A physical process, the racemization of
bipyridyl, was chosen. The transition structure features coplanar aryl rings and a specific binding force (the chelation of a metal by bipyridyl), and shows maximum metal/ligand attraction at the coplanar geometry. The biaryl bond acts like a fulcrum and binding induces a mechanical stress elsewhere in the molecule. This was one of the first molecular machines, a rotor.
Synthetic model of allosteric effects
Other bipyridyls and biphenyls were designed in the 1980s as synthetic models of allosteric effects shown below. One involved two identical and mechanically coupled binding sites and it showed positive cooperativity in binding of covalent mercury compounds. Rotors are still the most frequent chemical models for allosteric effects, and are present in many of the molecular machines pursued in other laboratories today.
Molecular recognition
Efforts in molecular recognition in the 1980s, led to cleft-like shapes for recognition of ions and especially nonionic targets. Using derivatives of Kemp's triacid, Rebek arranged functional groups that "converged" to create a recognition site. Shown above is a bisimide that chelates adenine in water. Versions with carboxyl groups became widely used elsewhere as models for metalloenzymes (the XDK structures) and in Rebek's laboratory to probe
stereoelectronic effect
In chemistry, primarily organic and computational chemistry, a stereoelectronic effectAlabugin, I. V. Stereoelectronic Effects: the Bridge between Structure and Reactivity. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, UK, 2016. http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/W ...
s.
Self-replication
In 1990, these studies culminated in a synthetic, self-complementary that acted as a template for its own formation. It showed autocatalysis based on molecular recognition and was the first synthetic system to show a primitive sign of life: self-replication.
The template grasps the reactants by hydrogen bonding at both ends as indicated below. The self-complementary "recipe" has been incorporated universally in self-replicating systems synthesized in other research groups.
Philip Ball
Philip Ball (born 1962) is a British science writer. For over twenty years he has been an editor of the journal ''Nature'' for which he continues to write regularly. He now writes a regular column in '' Chemistry World''. He has contributed to ...
in his book, ''Designing the Molecular World'', argues that Rebek's self-replicating molecules share some criteria with both nucleic acids and proteins and, moreover, "their replications operates according to novel kind of molecular interaction rather than mimicking the complementarity base pairing of nucleic acids. One could view this as an indication that perhaps DNA is not the sine qua non of life, so that one might conceive of organisms that 'live' according to completely different molecular principles." He suggests that Rebek has been able to pursue the idea of "molecular 'evolution' by making artificial replicators that can be mutated. … The considerable excitement that has greeted Julius Rebek's work is inspired in part by the possibilities that it raises for exploring the kind of chemical processes that led to the appearance of life on our planet."
British ethologist
Richard Dawkins in his book, ''
River out of Eden
''River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life'' is a 1995 popular science book by Richard Dawkins. The book is about Darwinian evolution and summarizes the topics covered in his earlier books, ''The Selfish Gene'', '' The Extended Phenotype'' a ...
'', suggests that Rebek's replicating molecules "raise the possibility of other worlds having a parallel evolution
o Earth'sbut with a fundamentally different chemical basis."
Self assembly
Through collaboration with Javier de Mendoza in 1993, Rebek managed to create a self-assembling capsule. These form reversibly by completely surrounding small molecule targets and have become a versatile tool of modern
physical organic chemistry
Physical organic chemistry, a term coined by Louis Hammett in 1940, refers to a discipline of organic chemistry that focuses on the relationship between chemical structures and reactivity, in particular, applying experimental tools of physical c ...
. They exist in solution at equilibrium and under ambient conditions. They act as nanometric reaction chambers, as means to stabilize reagents, as sources of "complexes within complexes" and as spaces where new forms of stereochemistry have been created. They also inspired encapsulation in other research groups that use metal-ligand interactions for self-assembly. A cylindrical capsule of nanometric dimensions is shown above; it selects congruent guests singly or pairwise when the space inside is appropriately filled.
![Encapsulating Assembly ChemEurJ 1996 v2 p989](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Encapsulating_Assembly_ChemEurJ_1996_v2_p989.jpg)
Richard Dawkins writes about autocatalysis as a potential explanation for
abiogenesis
In biology, abiogenesis (from a- 'not' + Greek bios 'life' + genesis 'origin') or the origin of life is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothes ...
in his 2004 book ''
The Ancestor's Tale
''The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life'' is a science book by Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong on the subject of evolution, which follows the path of humans backwards through evolutionary history, describing some of humanity's cou ...
''. He cites experiments performed by Julius Rebek and his colleagues at the Scripps Research Institute in California in which they combined amino
adenosine and pentafluorophenyl ester with the autocatalyst amino adenosine triacid ester (AATE). One system from the experiment contained variants of AATE which catalysed the synthesis of themselves. This experiment demonstrated the possibility that autocatalysts could exhibit competition within a population of entities with heredity, which could be interpreted as a rudimentary form of natural selection.
Protein Surface Mimetics
In recent years Rebek has pursued synthetic protein surface mimetics.
Through a collaboration with
Tamas Bartfai, these show promising biological activity in animal models of diseases.
Positions held
*1970-1976: Assistant Professor, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
*1976-1979: Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
*1980-1989: Professor, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
*1989-1991: Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
*1991-1996: Camille Dreyfus Prof. of Chemistry Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
*1996–present: Director, Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA
Honors
*1967-1970:
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
pre-doctoral fellow
*1976-1974:
Eli Lilly Award
*1976-1978:
A.P. Sloan Fellow
*1981:
Alexander von Humboldt Fellow
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Resea ...
*1986:
Guggenheim Fellow
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...
*1990:
Myron L. Bender and Muriel S. Bender Distinguished Summer Lecturer in Organic Chemistry,
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
*1991:
Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award
*1993:
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
*1994:
National Academy of Sciences
*1995:
Highland Park High School, Hall of Fame
*1996:
MERIT Award (
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
)
*1997:
James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry (
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...
)
*2001:
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
*2002:
Chemical Pioneer Award (
American Institute of Chemists
The American Institute of Chemists (AIC) is an organization founded in 1923 with the goal of advancing the chemistry profession in the United States. The institute is known for its yearly awards recognizing contributions of individuals in this fi ...
)
*2004:
Ronald Breslow Award for Achievement in Biomimetic Chemistry (
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...
)
*2005: Medal of the Academy of Sciences; Prague, Czech Republic
*2005: Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts; Modena, Italy
*2005: European Academy of Science (
Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.
The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...
) Member
*2011:
William H. Nichols Medal
External links
Official websitea
The Scripps Research Institute
Relevant publications
*
*
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rebek, Julius
1944 births
Living people
People from Berehove
21st-century American chemists
Hungarian chemists
Hungarian scientists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Scripps Research faculty
Members of Academia Europaea
Hungarian emigrants to the United States
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
University of California, Los Angeles faculty