Professor Dr. Peter H. Seeberger - Vice President of the DFG since 2021
Position
Director at Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany
Qualifications and Career
| Year | Description |
|---|---|
| 1987 - 1990 | B.S. in Chemistry, Erlangen, Germany |
| 1990 - 1995 | Ph.D. at M.H. Caruthers, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA |
| 1995 - 1997 | PostDoc at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, New York, USA |
| 1998 - 2002 | Assistant Professor of Chemistry at MIT, Cambridge, USA |
| 2002 - 2003 | Associate Professor of Chemistry (tenured) at MIT, Cambridge, USA |
| 2003 - 2008 | Professor of Chemistry at ETH Zurich, Switzerland |
| since 2009 | Professor of Chemistry at FU Berlin, Germany |
| since 2009 | Director at Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany |
Activities in the Research System (selection)
| Year | Description |
|---|---|
| 2017 | Member of the Senate, Max Planck Society |
| 2022 | Member of the Board of Trustees, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover |
| 2021 | Vice President, DFG |
| 2023 | Founding Director, Center for the Transformation of Chemistry |
| 2011 | Editor-in-chief; Beilstein J. of Organic Chemistry (Diamond Open Access) |
Supervision of Researchers in Early Career Phases
Supervised over 70 doctoral researchers and more than 150 postdoctoral researchers 74 former group members have gone on to hold professorships.
Scientific Results
- Automated synthesis of oligosaccharides: Peter Seeberger pioneered the concept of automated carbohydrate synthesis, leading to the development of commercially available glycan synthesis machines now used globally to produce sugar chains of up to 150 monosaccharide units.
- Synthetic carbohydrate vaccines: Rapid chemical synthesis of defined glycans offers a new pathway for the discovery and development of vaccines against a range of pathogens. A vaccine candidate for Clostridioides difficile which was developed in Seeberger’s lab entered clinical trials in collaboration with Idorsia AG in 2024. A number of novel vaccine candidates based on this medicinal-chemical approach are at various stages of development.
- Antibodies against carbohydrate structures: Synthetic glycans mimicking pathogen surface structures form the basis for monoclonal antibodies targeting bacteria and tumour-associated carbohydrate antigens. Antibodies against tumour-associated carbohydrate antigens are now being developed in the preclinical phase for cancer treatment by the spin-off company Tacalyx (Berlin).
- Carbohydrate microarrays: In 2003, Seeberger created the first glycan microarrays by printing synthetic carbohydrates onto surfaces using an inkjet printer. This technique has since become a standard tool for identifying carbohydrate-protein interactions and has enabled discoveries such as antibodies to bacterial glycans in the cerebrospinal fluid of multiple sclerosis patients.
- Continuous-flow synthesis: Seeberger was a pioneer in this field as early as 2001 and has since developed concepts and methods for producing increasingly complex molecules using continuous-flow chemistry. The synthesis of the antimalarial drug artemisinin from plant waste, air and light is currently being scaled up for use at the 100-ton scale.
- Plante, O.J.; Palmacci, E.R.; Seeberger, P.H.; Automated Solid-Phase Synthesis of Oligosaccharides; Science 2001, 291, 1523-1527. This article describes the concept and implementation of automated glycan assembly, which marked the beginning of the field of molecular glycobiology.
- Levesque, F.; Seeberger, P.H.; Continuous flow synthesis of the antimalarial drug artemisinin; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 1706-1709. It also presents a method for synthesising the antimalarial drug artemisinin from plant waste, light and air. This method was subsequently refined and is now used to produce compounds currently undergoing Phase II clinical trials for prostate cancer.
- Hahm, H.S.; Schlegel, M.K.; Hurevich, M.; Eller, S.; Schuhmacher, F.; Hofmann, J.; Pagel, K.; Seeberger, P.H.; Automated Glycan Assembly Using the Glyconeer 2.1® Synthesizer; Proc Nat Acad Sci USA, 2017, 114, E3385-E338. The article reports on the first commercial synthesiser for automated glycan assembly, based on the technology developed over a period of 22 years in the Seeberger laboratory. The device, as well as the newer Glyconeer 3.1 (available on the market since 2023), has been used over the past ten years by the spin-off company GlycoUniverse in 28 laboratories across three continents.
- Joseph, A.; Pardo-Vargas, A.; Seeberger, P.H.; Total Synthesis of Polysaccharides by Automated Glycan Assembly; J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2020, 142, 8561-8564. This publication describes the automated synthesis of a 100-mer polysaccharide as well as the block coupling of a 151-mer branched polymer. It demonstrates that even very large carbohydrates are now accessible through automated synthesis.
- Schumann, B.; Hahm, H.S.; Parameswarappa, S.G.; Reppe, K.; Wahlbrink, A.; Govindan, S.; Kaplonek, P.; Pirofski, L.-a.; Witzenrath, M.; Anish, C.; Pereira, C.L.; Seeberger, P.H.; A Semisynthetic Streptococcus pneumoniae Serotype 8 Glycoconjugate Vaccine Candidate; Science Transl. Med. 2017, 9, eaaf5347. The article is part of a series of publications on the identification of vaccine candidates against severe hospital-acquired infections, based on defined glycotopes. The paper outlines a conceptual design for how synthetic carbohydrate vaccines can be developed.
- Goerdeler, F.; Khan Khilji, S.; Lühle, J.; Frensemeier, K.; Warschkau, D.; Schirmeister, F.; Chen, Z.A.; Malik, A.; Garg, M.; Varon Silva, D.; Turak, O.; Mallagaray, A.; Boerno, S.; Timmermann, B.; Rappsilber, J.; Seeberger, P.H.; Moscovitz, O.; Production of glycan- binding nanobodies; Cell Chem. Bio. 2022, 29, 1353-1361. This article also describes the production of glycan-binding nanobodies from synthetic glycans, which now form part of the technology brought into clinical development by the spin-off company Tacalyx.
- Pröbstel, A.-K.; Zhou, X.; Baumann, R.; Rojas, O.L.; Wischnewski, S.; Kutza, M.; Sellrie, K.; Kim, K.; Ramesh, A.; Dandekar, R.; Greenfield, A.L.; Schubert, R.D.; Bisanz, J.E.; Vistnes, S.; Khalegi, K.; Liesche, F.; Ramaglia, V.; Bischof, A.; Singh, S.; Tran, E.B.; Barba, P.; Zorn, K.; Heijnen, I.; Oechtering, J.; Forsberg, K.; Henry, R.; Helmuth, J.; Shiow, L.R.; Gelfand, J.M.; Graves, J.; Cree, B.A.C.; Hauser, S.L.; Kuhle, J.; Weishaupt, J.H.; Andersen, P.M.; Schlegel, J.Turnbaugh, P.J.; Seeberger, P.H.; Gommerman, J.L.; Schirmer, L.; Wilson, M.R.; Baranzini, S.E.; Gut microbiota-specific IgA+ B cells 1 traffic to the CNS in active multiple 2 sclerosis Science Immunology 2020, 5, eabc7191. The study shows that antibodies against the glycans of bacteria from the gut microbiome are detectable in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with multiple sclerosis. Similar observations have now been made in several other autoimmune diseases. These findings provide the basis for the development of new diagnostic methods.
| Jahr | Auszeichnung |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Richard Willstätter Prize for Chemical Biology (Germany) |
| 2024 | Distinguished Service Award, Society for Glycobiology (SFG) (USA); Khorana Prize (RSC, UK) |
| 2023 | Elhuyar-Goldschmidt Award, Royal Society of Chemistry (Spain) |
| 2022 | ACCTI Fellow Award (India) |
| 2022 | Honorary Doctorate, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague (Czech Republic); Fellow, Royal Society of Chemistry (UK); Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| 2021 | Fellow, Lincoln College, University of Oxford; ACS Award for Affordable Green Chemistry |
| 2020 | Emil Fischer Medal, German Chemical Society (GDCh) |
| 2019 | Barry Cohen Prize, Medicinal Chemistry Section, Israel Chemical Society; Melville L. Wolfrom Award, ACS Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry |
| 2018 | Gusi Peace Prize (Philippines); Ernst Hellmut Vits Prize, University of Münster |
| 2017 | Science Award of Stifterverband |
| 2015 | Prize for Humanity in Science |
| 2013 | Member, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities |
| 2012 | Whistler Award, International Carbohydrate Organization |
| 2011 | Hans Herloff Inhoffen Medal, TU Braunschweig |
| 2009 | Claude S. Hudson Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry (ACS); Honorary Lifetime Member, Israel Chemical Society |
| 2008 | Karl Heinz Beckurts Prize |
| 2007 | Yoshimasa Hirata Gold Medal, Nagoya University; named among “The 100 Most Important Swiss Nationals”, Schweizer Illustrierte (2007); Körber European Science Award; Havinga Medal, Leiden University |
| 2004 | Otto-Klung Weberbank Prize for Chemistry |
| 2003 | Horace B. Isbell Award (ACS Carb Division); Arthur C. Cope Young Scholar Award (ACS) |
| 2002 | Robert P. Goldberg Grand Prize; Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award |
| 1999 | Technology Review Top 100 Young Innovator Award |
| 1990 - 1992 | Fulbright Fellow |
Other Information
In 2004, I co-founded the Tesfa-Ilg Hope for Africa Foundation, which supported the establishment of a mosquito net manufacturing facility, an IT training centre, and an entrepreneurship hub in Ethiopia.
I was also a co-founder of the following companies: Ancora Pharmaceuticals (2002, sold in 2013); i2chem (2003, sold in 2007), Glyxera (2011 - ), GlycoUniverse (2012 - ) ArtemiFlow (2012 - ), Vaxxilon (2015 – sold in 2020; vaccine against C. difficile in human clinical trials), Tacalyx (2017 - ), Draupnir Bio (2017 - ), Artemiflow USA (2017 - ) ArtemiLife (2017 - ; active ingredient in human clinical trials), ArtemiPet (2017 - ).