Synthetic Chemistry for Biologics

 

Synthetic Chemistry for Biologics

 

Date: 3^rd December, 2025 (Wednesday)

Time: 5:30 - 6:30 pm (HKT)

 

Venue: Lecture Theatre P1, Chong Yuet Ming Chemistry Building

 

Prof. Jeffrey Bode

 

ETH Zürich, Switzerland

 

Jeffrey studied chemistry and philosophy at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where he worked in the research group of Prof. Michael P. Doyle. After PhD studies at the California Institute of Technology and ETH Zürich with Prof. Erick M. Carreira, he spent two years in Japan as a JSPS postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Keisuke Suzuki at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 2003, he began his independent career in US, at UC-Santa Barbara and then the University of Pennsylvania. In 2010, he moved to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland, as a full Professor in the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry. Since 2013, he is also a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Transformative bio-Molecules at Nagoya University, where the Bode Group has a satellite laboratory.

 

Since starting his academic career, Jeffrey's research and teaching have been recognized by numerous awards including an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (2008), and and Elias J. Corey Award for Outstanding Original Contribution in Organic Synthesis by a Young Investigator (2011). His research group founded and operates the “Make-a-Molecule” outreach program for young scientist. He has served as Chair of the Editorial Board for Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry (2011–2014), as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Helvetica Chimica Acta, and is currently an Executive Editor for Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis. Research in his group has led to the formation of two companies, Synple Chem AG (Zürich, CH) for the automation of organic synthesis and Bright Peak Therapeutics (Basel and San Diego) for next generation therapeutic proteins. He currently serves on the Division II Research Council for the Swiss National Science Foundation and as Director of Studies for the new Biochemistry and Chemical Biology Curriculum at ETH Zürich.

 

Modern bioactive molecules are often perceived as being split into two tribes – small molecules and biologics. This distinction extents not only the size of the molecules – with biologics being large therapeutic proteins, antibodies, vaccines, and nucleic acids – but to their mode of production. Small molecules benefit from the power of organic synthesis to manipulate and tailor every atom in their structure, while biologics are largely limited to natural building blocks with few opportunities for modification and manipulation by organic reactions. Advances in synthetic method for de novo construction of biologics, including therapeutic proteins, and innovative new approaches for site-specific modification of recombinant biologicals increasingly blur this line. New technologies in new chemical and enzymatic reactions will make possible a new generation of biologicals that can be precisely tailored with systematic changes to their structure, making it possible to perform precise “medicinal chemistry” on biologics.