Hartmuth Christian Kolb (born 10 August 1964) is a German chemist. He is considered one of the founders of

click chemistry Click chemistry is an approach to chemical synthesis that emphasizes efficiency, simplicity, selectivity, and modularity in chemical processes used to join molecular building blocks. It includes both the development and use of "click reactions", a ...

Early life and career

After graduating from high school in Marsberg in 1983, Kolb studied at the University of Hanover under the direction of Professor H.M.R. Hoffmann. He received his doctorate as an academic student of Steven Ley at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

with a thesis on preparative

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...

(''Synthesis of the decalin fragment of azadirachtin''). As a postdoctoral fellow he worked with

Barry Sharpless Karl Barry Sharpless (born April 28, 1941) is an American stereochemist. He is a two-time Nobel laureate in chemistry, known for his work on stereoselective reactions and click chemistry. Sharpless was awarded half of the 2001 Nobel Prize i ...

at the Scripps Research Institute in

La Jolla, California La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood in San Diego, California, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. The climate is mild, with an average daily temperature o ...

. He then worked in the research department of

Ciba-Geigy Novartis AG is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the eighth largest by revenue in 2024. Novartis manufactures the drugs ...

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

from 1993 to 1997 before taking up a managerial position at Coelacanth Corporation, founded by Sharpless and A. Bader in

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

. Coelacanth was eventually acquired by Lexicon Pharmaceuticals. In 2002, Kolb obtained an associate professorship in the Department of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute. Kolb later obtained a professorship at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

. In 2004 Kolb returned to industry and became Vice President of Molecular Imaging

Biomarker In biomedical contexts, a biomarker, or biological marker, is a measurable indicator of some biological state or condition. Biomarkers are often measured and evaluated using blood, urine, or soft tissues to examine normal biological processes, ...

Research at Siemens Healthcare in

Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. It is mostly surrounded by Los Angeles, but also shares a border with the unincorporated area of Ladera Heights, Californi ...

. In 2013, Siemens sold two of the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) radiotracers developed there to Eli Lilly and Company, most notably the Tau PET tracer 8FT807 (aka AV1451, Flortaucipir, Tauvid), now FDA approved for PET imaging of the brain to estimate the density and distribution of aggregated tau neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in adult patients with cognitive impairment who are being evaluated for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Simultaneously, Kolb joined Avid Radiopharmaceuticals in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of

Eli Lilly and Company Eli Lilly and Company, Trade name, doing business as Lilly, is an American multinational Medication, pharmaceutical company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, with offices in 18 countries. Its products are sold in approximately 125 count ...

, as vice president of research, and later Janssen Research & Development (Johnson & Johnson) as vice president of Neuroscience Biomarkers & Global Imaging. After leaving Johnson & Johnson in 2024, he joined Enigma Biomedical Group as their Chief Scientific Officer to focus on the development of CNS imaging tracers. He is also Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Work

Together with

and M.G. Finn, Kolb developed the concept of

, an approach to simplify synthesis by focusing on a few chemical reactions that are similar in nature. The associated scientific publication Click chemistry: diverse chemical function from a few good reactions has been cited more than 20,000 times (as of 2025) and was the foundation for the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for K. Barry Sharpless, Carolyn Bertozzi and Morten Meldal. Kolb refined the method by combining it as in-situ click chemistry with

microfluidic Microfluidics refers to a system that manipulates a small amount of fluids (10−9 to 10−18 liters) using small channels with sizes of ten to hundreds of micrometres. It is a multidisciplinary field that involves molecular analysis, molecular bi ...

processes. This makes it particularly easy to synthesize new inhibitors for various

enzyme An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different mol ...

Kolb's more recent work deals with the synthesis of new tracers for

positron emission tomography Positron emission tomography (PET) is a functional imaging technique that uses radioactive substances known as radiotracers to visualize and measure changes in metabolic processes, and in other physiological activities including blood flow, r ...

(e.g. for detecting the tau protein in

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...

) and with the clinical testing of these tracers, a key highlight being 8FT807, also known as AV1451, Flortaucipir, Tauvid, which was approved in 2020 by the US food and drug administration (FDA) for imaging

neurofibrillary tangle Neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) are intracellular aggregates of hyperphosphorylated tau protein that are most commonly known as a primary Biomarker (medicine), biomarker of Alzheimer's disease. Their presence is also found in numerous other disea ...

s in adults who are being evaluated for Alzheimer's Disease. Kolb's lab has developed a blood plasma assay for phospho-217-Tau (p217Tau), which shows potential as a highly accurate peripheral biomarker for amyloid and Tau status in Alzheimer's Disease.

Awards

Kolb was chosen as the recipient of the 2015 Alzheimer Award by the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and he was one of the recipients of the Royal Society of Chemistry 2021 Organic Division Horizon Prize: Robert Robinson Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kolb, Hartmuth C 1964 births Living people Scripps Research faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty 21st-century German chemists 20th-century German chemists Leibniz University Hannover alumni Siemens people Alumni of Imperial College London German organic chemists Eli Lilly and Company people People from Marsberg