Professor Laura Kiessling
University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Building the Cell's Sugar Coat University of Zürich, Irchel Campus, Department of Chemistry 10th of October 2013, UZH Irchel,Theatersaal Y21-F-65, 12:00 p.m. Organized and directed by the Department of Chemistry

Laura Kiessling received her undergraduate training in Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she conducted undergraduate research in organic synthesis with Professor Bill Roush. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale University where she worked with Stuart L. Schreiber on the synthesis of anti-tumor natural products. Subsequently, she did her postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology in the research group of Peter B. Dervan, which led her to explore the recognition of duplex DNA through triple helix formation. She began her independent career in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1991. Since 1999, she holds an appointment as Full Professor in Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Laura Kiessling recently became a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Her other honors and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the ACS Frances P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal, the Harrison-Howe, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar, and the Horrace S. Isabell Awards, among several others.

Professor Kiessling's research interests include multivalent binding events, biomolecular recognition, signal transduction, and chemical glycobiology. Together with her group, she designs and synthesizes biomolecules to unveil structure/function relationships, particularly extracellular recognition events that involve protein–carbohydrate interactions, low affinity protein interactions, or signal transduction.