Leonidas Zervas Award

The Leonidas Zervas Award is presented in commemoration of his outstanding contributions to peptide science. The award is given to the scientist who has made the most outstanding contributions to the chemistry, biochemistry and/or biology of peptides in the five years preceding the date of selection, and is sponsored by the donation of Dr. Rao Makineni.

The 2016 awardee is Christian F.W. Becker. Congratulations!


The 2016 awardee is Prof. Christian F.W. Becker

Becker

Prof. Christian F.W. Becker, University of Vienna, Austria, is recognized for his major contributions to the development of improved methods for the total chemical synthesis and semisynthesis of complex modified proteins and their application to mechanistic and structural biological questions. The boundaries of chemical protein synthesis were extended by his group by generating the first membrane-embedded enzyme as well as by providing access to different membrane-attached proteins such as the Prion protein.

Recently he added the synthesis and in vitro study of highly posttranslationally modified silaffin peptides and their use for mild encapsulation of proteins via biomimetic silica precipitation to his research interests. In his latest work he has facilitated access to complex glycosylated peptides by a new chemoenzymatic approach. Christian Becker has published more than 75 papers, reviews, book chapters and patents.


The Leonidas Zervas Award will be presented at the Opening Ceremony (Sunday, September 4, 16:30-19:00, Auditorium Maximum, Paulinum) of the 34th European Peptide Symposium, Leipzig, Germany.


Recipients of the Leonidas Zervas Award

2014 Miguel Castanho & Philip Dawson (shared)
University of Lisbon, Portugal &
The Scripps Research Institute, USA
2012 Knud J. Jensen
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
2010 Helma Wennemers
University of Basel, Switzerland
2008 Anna Maria Papini
University of Florence, Italy
2006 Carlos García-Echeverría
Novartis Institute for BioMedical Research, Basel, Switzerland
2004 Helene Gras-Masse
Institut Pasteur de Lille, France
2002 Thomas W. Muir
Rockefeller University, New York, USA
2000 Antonello Pessi
Instituto di Ricerche di Biologica Moleculare P. Angeletti,
Rome, Italy
1998 Annette G. Beck-Sickinger
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
1996 Morten Meldal
Carlsberg Laboratory, Valby, Denmark
1994
Ernest Giralt & Fernando Albericio (shared)
University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
1992 Günther Jung
University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
1990 Michal Lebl & Jean Martinez (shared)
Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague
& CNRS, Montpellier, France
1988 Alex Eberle
University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland