Julius Rebek

Julius Rebek Junior (born April 11, 1944 in Beregszász , Hungary ) is an American chemist who deals with organic chemistry and is a professor at the Scripps Research Institute . He is considered one of the pioneers of supramolecular chemistry .

Rebek graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelor's degree in 1966 and received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1970 . 1970 to 1976 he was an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles , 1980 to 1989 professor at the University of Pittsburgh , 1989 to 1996 professor at MIT and from 1996 professor at the Scripps Research Institute and director of the Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology.

He is concerned with organic reactions, enzyme models, molecular recognition and self-replication, where he synthesized molecules that reproduce themselves in vitro.

Since the 1990s he has been working on the synthesis of cage molecules that can take up drug materials inside and can be opened and closed in a targeted manner. After their shape, they were named tennis ball (first in 1993), softball , football , volleyball (and with slightly different shapes, cylinder , cavitand ).

Honors and memberships

• 1976 to 1980 Sloan Research Fellow
• 1981 and 2009 Humboldt Research Prize
• 1986 Guggenheim Fellow
• 1997 James Flack Norris Award
• 2002 Chemical Pioneer Award
• 2010 Honorary doctorate from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
• 2012 Prelog medal and lecture

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993), the National Academy of Sciences (1994), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2001) and the Academia Europaea (2005).

Web links

• Website of his laboratory
• Rebek with the Humboldt Research Award 2009 at the Free University of Berlin

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004.
2. ↑ Rebek Artificial Molecules That Multiply , Spectrum of Science, September 1994.