Professor Manfred Reetz, Max-Plank-Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim, Germany, has been awarded the International Kyoto Conference on New Aspect of Organic Chemistry (IKCOC) Prize for his outstanding contribution to new aspects of organic chemistry. He received the prize at the opening ceremony of IKCOC-12, November 12, 2012. He presented an award lecture on the laboratory-based evolution of stereoselective enzymes for use as catalysts for asymmetric reactions.
Manfred Reetz was born in Hirschberg, Germany, in 1943 and immigrated to the USA in 1952. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree from the Washington University, USA, and his Master’s degree from the University of Michigan, USA. He returned to Germany to complete his Ph.D. at the University of Göttingen.
He has been a Professor at several German and American universities, including the universities of Marburg and Bonn, in Germany, and Florida State University and University of Wisconsin in the US. In 1991, he was appointed as the Director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Coal Research, where he remained until his retirement in 2011.
Reetz’ research involves the introduction of molecular biology into synthetic organic chemistry, for example, for selective C–C and C–H activating oxidations of simple and complex organic compounds as well as hydrolytic processes. He is also known for investigating biological strategies and techniques for rapidly probing protein sequence space and the development of high-throughput screening systems for evaluating stereoselectivity and thermostability of enzyme mutants.
Reetz has also served on the editorial boards of several leading international journals, including Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis and Angewandte Chemie.
- Artificial metalloenzymes as catalysts in stereoselective diels–alder reactions,
Manfred T. Reetz,
The Chemical Record 2012.
DOI: 10.1002/tcr.201100043 - Achieving Regio- and Enantioselectivity of P450-Catalyzed Oxidative CH Activation of Small Functionalized Molecules by Structure-Guided Directed Evolution,
Rubén Agudo, Gheorghe-Doru Roiban, Manfred T. Reetz,
ChemBioChem 2012, 13(10), 1465–1473.
DOI: 10.1002/cbic.201200244 - Tuning a P450 Enzyme for Methane Oxidation,
Felipe E. Zilly, Juan P. Acevedo, Wojciech Augustyniak, Alfred Deege, Ulrich W. Häusig, Manfred T. Reetz,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50(12), 2720–2724.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201006587
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