Winner: 2024 Chemistry Biology Interface open Prize: Khorana Prize
Professor Peter Seeberger
Max-Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces
For the development of automated glycan assembly as a basis for molecular glycobiology and synthetic carbohydrate vaccines.
Professor Seeberger developed the chemistry that allowed for the automated assembly of complex sugars that make up most of the world’s biomass. Specific sugars surround human cells, bacteria and parasites. Professor Seeberger’s methods made it possible to stimulate the immune system to recognise these sugars on the surface of cancer cells, bacteria and fungi. This opens up opportunities for new diagnostics, vaccines and drugs.
Biography
Peter H Seeberger was a tenured professor at MIT and ETH Zurich before becoming director at the Max-Planck Institute in Potsdam in 2009. Since 2021, has been Vice President of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and, since 2023, Founding Director of the Center for the Transformation of Chemistry (CTC), which received initial funding of €1.25 billion. Peter’s research spans engineering to immunology and has been documented in over 670 journal articles and more than 60 patent families. His research has also received over 40 international awards. Peter supports open access publishing and is Editor-in-Chief of the Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry. He is a co-founder of several successful companies as well as the Tesfa-Ilg Foundation, which works in Ethiopia.
Q&A with Professor Peter Seeberger
How did you first become interested in chemistry?
I had an excellent chemistry teacher in high school. The idea that chemists could create molecules and materials that never existed before appealed to me.
Tell us about somebody who has inspired or mentored you in your career.
A key mentor in my career was Professor Samuel Danishefsky, who lived (and lives) to do chemistry and make the next very challenging molecule. From him, I learnt that it is all about science, but most of all, it is about the people. The young colleagues we work with are most likely our biggest contribution.
Later, Professor Khorana was a major influence as a colleague at MIT.
He was already 75 years old when I first met him. He was unassuming, he was sharp, and he was really focused on the research on hand. Again, a nice human being with an immense drive who worked on very different areas of chemistry and biology.
What motivates you?
I want to make the lives of people better. It is my belief that progress in human societies depends very much on science and technology. As chemists, we have the opportunity to make a major impact in medicine by understanding biological processes and, in turn, create vaccines, drugs and diagnostics.
What advice would you give to a young person considering a career in chemistry?
Do what excites you and what you like. Always make sure that you have more options after your next step than you have now.
Why is chemistry important?
Chemistry is the basis of all life on earth. 97% of all products used by humans are made chemically or are treated with chemicals.
What has been a highlight for you (either personally or in your career)?
The discovery of the chemistry that allowed us to automate the assembly of oligo- and, later, polysaccharides in 2000. This was the basis for all our other work, which resulted in diagnostics, vaccines and drugs, but being able to make the complex molecules quickly and reliably changed everything.
What has been a challenge for you (either personally or in your career)?
Being obsessed with chemistry biology in general and with the project on hand is helpful – at the same time, that can become a challenge in balancing work and a life outside chemistry.
What does good research culture look like/mean to you?
For me, there are a couple of simple rules: 1) Everybody has to benefit – the students and the advisors want to do good chemistry, so we work together, not "for" one another. Exploiting people is totally unacceptable. 2) I'm intolerant towards intolerance. It does not matter where people come from, what they look like, or what their religious and other preferences are – in the end, it is about science and about learning. It is like in sports – in the end, the performance counts.
How are the chemical sciences making the world a better place?
97% of all products are made of chemicals or treated with chemicals, so that answers part of the question. At the same time, due to that fact, chemistry has created a lot of problems concerning the environment. This is why we need a total transformation of the chemical industry to a circular economy. No more use of fossil materials and complete recycling. This is a huge generational task that can only be solved by gigantic chemical and engineering advances. I am completely convinced that chemists can meet that challenge.
Why do you think collaboration and teamwork are important in science?
One single person can have a great idea and can make a major breakthrough, but the challenges we have to address require expertise from many different fields. So the really big problems can only be solved by teams.