Morten Peter Meldal (born 16 January 1954) is a Danish

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

and Nobel laureate. He is a professor of chemistry at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

, Denmark. He is best known for developing the CuAAC-click reaction, concurrently with but independent of Valery V. Fokin and K. Barry Sharpless.

Biography

Meldal received B.S. and PhD degrees in

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of the operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials ...

from

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark (), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's first polytechnic, and it is today ran ...

(DTU); his PhD work was supervised by Klaus Bock and focused on the synthetic chemistry of carbohydrates. From 1983 to 1988 he was a postdoctoral fellow in organic chemistry, first at the DTU, next at the

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology The Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) is a research institute in Cambridge, England, involved in the revolution in molecular biology which occurred in the 1950–60s. Since then it has remained a major medical r ...

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and then at the

. In 1996 he was appointed assistant professor at DTU. Since 1998 he has led the synthesis group in the Department of Chemistry of the

Carlsberg Laboratory The Carlsberg Research Laboratory is a private scientific research center in Copenhagen, Denmark under the Carlsberg Foundation. It was founded in 1875 by J. C. Jacobsen, the founder of the Carlsberg brewery, with the purpose of advancing bioche ...

. Meldal developed several technological techniques and instruments for peptide synthesis near the start of his career. He developed the multiple-column synthesis used in peptide and organic synthesis instruments, as well as for assembling large split-mix libraries. He first presented the cycloaddition of acetylenes and azides used in peptide and protein conjugations, in polymers and in material sciences. Meldal's group has then showed this reaction to be orthogonal to the majority of functional group chemistries. More recently Meldal has developed an optical encoding technique and has focused on the merger of

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 ...

and peptide chemistry on solid support. He has devised a range of novel methods for the generation of N-acyl iminium ions in which combinatorial libraries of these compounds are generated and screened for substances with activity toward

G protein-coupled receptors G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), also known as seven-(pass)-transmembrane domain receptors, 7TM receptors, heptahelical receptors, serpentine receptors, and G protein-linked receptors (GPLR), form a large protein family, group of evoluti ...

in cell-based on-bead screening. In 2019, Meldal co-founded the company Betamab Therapeutics ApS, based on the concept of beta-bodies, i.e. peptide mimics of

antibodies An antibody (Ab) or immunoglobulin (Ig) is a large, Y-shaped protein belonging to the immunoglobulin superfamily which is used by the immune system to identify and neutralize antigens such as bacteria and viruses, including those that caus ...

. The company closed in 2021.

Honors and awards

Meldal was awarded the 2022

Nobel Prize in Chemistry The Nobel Prize in Chemistry () is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outst ...

, jointly with

Carolyn R. Bertozzi Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (born October 10, 1966) is an American chemist and Nobel laureate, known for her wide-ranging work spanning both chemistry and biology. She coined the term " bioorthogonal chemistry" for chemical reactions compatible with ...

and

Karl 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 ...

, "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Meldal, Morten P. Danish chemists 1954 births Living people Carlsberg Laboratory staff Nobel laureates in Chemistry Technical University of Denmark alumni Academic staff of the University of Copenhagen Academic staff of the Technical University of Denmark 21st-century Danish scientists 21st-century chemists