Hans Renata, PhD, associate professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research, Florida, was named a member of the 2021 class of “Talented 12” up-and-coming chemists.
Chemist Hans Renata named a ‘Talented 12’ top chemist by news magazine C&EN
August 24, 2021
Jupiter, FL—A Scripps Research chemist who uses nature’s toolbox to recreate complex substances, Hans Renata, PhD, has been named one of this year’s “Talented 12” class of up-and-coming chemists by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the news magazine of the American Chemical Society. The magazine’s Talented 12 feature appears August 23 at cenm.ag/t12.
Renata, an associate professor of chemistry at Scripps Research in Jupiter, Florida, empowers other scientists’ work by developing methods for building often-rare natural chemical products to enable their further study.
With potential as new antibiotics, anti-cancer drugs or other applications, these precious compounds are often made in miniscule quantities in the wild. Renata discovers, deploys and re-engineers enzymes, nature’s snipping tools and catalysts, to recreate the complex natural molecules in the lab.
Natural chemicals often have practical usefulness for humanity. The antibiotic tetracycline, for example, was discovered in soil bacteria. The breast cancer drug Taxol was found in the bark of the yew tree. And the antimalarial compound quinine came from cinchona trees. But to make use of such natural products requires production on an industrial scale. Synthetic chemists like Renata devise ways to assemble the molecules from more readily available parts, with an eye toward efficiency.
What is unique about Renata’s approach is his insights on integrating some natural enzymatic processes to facilitate the chemical assembly in a lab setting—often with greater efficiency. With such methods, he has enabled the synthesis of highly oxidized diterpenes, which have potential as anti-inflammatories or similar medicinal uses. Other compounds he has synthesized include cepafungin I, a compound with anti-cancer properties, and aryltetralin lignan natural products, a group of plant-based chemicals which also have anti-cancer properties, among many others.
“We are so fortunate to have Hans Renata on our faculty,” says Ben Shen, PhD, who chairs the Chemistry Department at Scripps Research in Florida. “Hans has displayed a remarkable creativity in translating fundamental enzyme discovery to biocatalytic application. He is clearly poised to become a next-generation leader in chemoenzymatic synthesis of natural products.”
Renata is joined by other talented chemists from academia, industry, and government in receiving the C&EN “Talented 12” recognition this year. The other recipients are:
- Shanique Borteley Alabi, PhD, of Monte Rosa Therapeutics
- Alaaeddin Alsbaiee, PhD of DuPont
- Derya Baran, PhD of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
- Jesús Velázquez, PhD, of the University of California, Davis
- Katya Vinogradova, PhD, of Rockefeller University
- Ziyang Zhang, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco
- Patrick Fier, PhD, of Merck
- Cesunica Ivey, PhD, of the University of California, Berkeley
- Chern-Hooi Lim, PhD, of New Iridium
- Emilie Ringe, PhD, of the University of Cambridge
- Diego Solis-Ibarra, PhD, of National Autonomous University of Mexico
The “Talented 12” chemists will present details of their life and work during a virtual symposium September 27-28, featuring keynote speakers Carolyn Bertozzi, professor of chemistry at Stanford University, and Malika Jeffries-EL, associate dean of the graduate school of arts and sciences at Boston University.
To participate, register for the free event at cenm.ag/t12symp2021.
For more information, contact press@scripps.edu