RSC Medicinal Chemistry Blog

Congratulations to Professor Luca Laraia, recipient of the 2024 RSC Medicinal Chemistry Emerging Investigator Lectureship. 

The annual RSC Medicinal Chemistry Emerging Investigator Lectureship recognises a researcher who has made a significant contribution to medicinal chemistry and drug discovery in their independent academic career, and is open to candidates who received their PhD within the last 10 years. The RSC Medicinal Chemistry Editorial Board have selected Prof Laraia, from the the Technical University of Denmark, as the winner this year. Prof Laraia’s research focuses on the chemical biology of sterol-mediated processes, developing small molecule and protein regulators of cholesterol biosynthesis, metabolism and trafficking, with applications in a range of diseases.

“I am delighted to receive the RSC Medicinal Chemistry Emerging Investigator Lectureship. This is a fantastic recognition of the multidisciplinary work that characterises medicinal chemistry, carried out by our talented group members over the last few years. I am excited to continue to carry out and highlight our work on targeting sterol-mediated processes.” – Prof Luca Laraia

Prof Laraia’s lectureship will be held at a conference later this year, more details to follow. To stay up to date with future announcements, follow us on X (formerly Twitter): @rsc_medchem, LinkedIn: Chemical Biology RSCChemBio and sign-up to our news alerts.

More about Luca

Luca Laraia was born in Rome (Italy) and grew up in Vienna (Austria) before moving to London for his MSci degree in chemistry at Imperial College London. He carried out a PhD in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology funded by CRUK at the University of Cambridge, in the labs of Professors David Spring and Ashok Venkitaraman. He then moved to Dortmund as an Alexander von Humboldt post-doctoral research fellow to work at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology with Professor Herbert Waldmann, before joining the Department of Chemistry at the Technical University of Denmark as an Assistant Professor. Since April 2021 he is an Associate Professor at the same department, leading a research group at the interface of chemistry and biology, focusing on the development of chemical tools and potential therapeutic leads to study and modulate lipid homeostasis. Luca is the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant (2021) and a Hallas Møller Emerging Investigator (2021) from the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Check out Luca’s recent publications in Chemical Science and ChemComm:

Identification of non-conventional small molecule degraders and stabilizers of squalene synthase (Open Access) Joseph G. F. Hoock, Cecilia Rossetti, Mesut Bilgin, Laura Depta, Kasper Enemark-Rasmussen, John C. Christianson and Luca Laraia* Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 12973-12983
	Redshifted and thermally bistable one-way quantitative hemithioindigo-derived photoswitches enabled by isomer-specific excited state intramolecular proton transfer Mikkel Krell-Jørgensen, Habiburrahman Zulfikri, Magnus Grage Bonnevie, Frederik Simonsen Bro, Asmus Ougaard Dohn and Luca Laraia* Chem. Commun., 2023, 59, 563-566

Find out more about Luca and follow his lab’s X here at @laraialab.

Congratulations to Dr Christoph Nitsche, recipient of the 2023 RSC Medicinal Chemistry Emerging Investigator Lectureship. 

The annual RSC Medicinal Chemistry Emerging Investigator Lectureship recognises a researcher who has made a significant contribution to medicinal chemistry and drug discovery in their independent academic career, and is open to candidates who received their PhD within the last 10 years. The RSC Medicinal Chemistry Editorial Board have selected Dr Nitsche, from the Australian National University, as the winner this year.

“I am honoured to receive the RSC Medicinal Chemistry Emerging Investigator Lectureship, which I owe first and foremost to my students and postdocs for their tireless efforts over the last couple of years. I was fortunate enough to have had great mentors who inspired me to think outside the box and build interdisciplinary bridges. I am most grateful for the generous support I have received from foundations and funding agencies throughout my early career, as they have provided me the freedom to pursue my ideas.” – Dr Christoph Nitsche

Dr Nitsche’s lectureship will be held virtually at date to be confirmed. To stay up to date with future announcements, follow us on Twitter @rsc_medchem and sign-up to our news alerts.

More about Christoph

Dr Nitsche is Associate Professor and ARC Future Fellow at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. He completed his PhD in medicinal chemistry at Heidelberg University, Germany, in 2014 and was awarded a Feodor Lynen Fellowship to undertake postdoctoral work in structural biology at the ANU from 2015 to 2018. After a short period at the Free University of Berlin, he received an ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award in 2019 to return to the ANU as a group leader with the goal to accelerate drug discovery. His most recent honours include the John Wade Early Career Researcher Award, the Peter Schwerdtfeger Award, and the Australian Research Award as top researcher in the field of Medicinal Chemistry. Dr Nitsche’s interdisciplinary research program focuses on infectious diseases, bioorthogonal chemistry, and peptide and protein modification.

Find out more about Christoph and the work his lab is doing on their webpage.