Alex was born in Germany and studied Chemistry at the University of Münster from 1993-1998. He received his diploma degree in 1998 and his doctoral degree in 2000 for work in Professor Hoppe's group on new cyclization reactions with enantiomerically enriched allyllithium species. In 2001 he joined Professor Martin's lab at the University of Texas at Austin where he worked as a postdoctoral fellow on the total synthesis of indole alkaloids. In 2002 he began another postdoctorate in Professor Schultz's lab at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla where he developed genetic code expansion methodologies for unnatural amino acids.
Alex received several awards for his Ph.D. and postdoctoral work, most importantly for the best dissertation at the Departments of Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Computer Science at the University of Münster in 2001. His studies were continously supported by fellowships from the German National Academic Foundation, the Fund of the Chemical Industry, the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, and the German Research Foundation.
In 2004, Alex joined the Department of Chemistry at North Carolina State University as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009 and to Full Professor in 2012. He moved his lab to the University of Pittsburgh in September 2013, where he currently is a Professor of Chemistry. His group's research interests are in the areas of Synthetic Biology and Chemical Biology, and range from the discovery of small molecule modifiers of biological pathways, medicinal chemistry, peptides and aptamers to cell, protein, and nucleic acid engineering. Alex has trained over one hundred graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates in his lab and several of the compounds and reagents that his group developed are commercially available. He has also been a faculty advisor to the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) teams at the University of Pittsburgh since 2016.
Alex is a member of the Hillman Cancer Center, the Molecular Biophysics and Structural Biology Program at the University of Pittsburgh, the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Pittsburgh, the Center for Systems Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Center for Nucleic Acids Science & Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. He has published >190 peer-reviewed papers, written six book chapters and 14 review articles, has presented over one hundred eighty research seminars, and has consulted for several pharmaceutical companies. He has several granted patents and technologies that he co-developed have been licensed by the biotech industry. Alex is a member of the editorial advisory board of ChemBioChem and ChemPhotoChem, and a member of the editorial board of Scientific Reports. He also also been a guest editor for special issues of Methods in Enzymology, Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, ChemBioChem, and ChemPhotoChem. Alex is a standing member of NIH's SBCB study review group.
For his research accomplishments, Alex received a Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Award from the March of Dimes Foundation, a Sigma Xi Research Faculty Award, a Cottrell Scholar Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a Teva USA Scholars Grant from the American Chemical Society, a Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grant, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Grant, an NCSU Alumni Association Outstanding Research Award, and a Charles E. Kaufman Foundation New Initiative Research Award. Research discoveries from his lab have been highlighted by various news outlets
For Alex's departmental webpage click here.
Alex received several awards for his Ph.D. and postdoctoral work, most importantly for the best dissertation at the Departments of Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Computer Science at the University of Münster in 2001. His studies were continously supported by fellowships from the German National Academic Foundation, the Fund of the Chemical Industry, the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, and the German Research Foundation.
In 2004, Alex joined the Department of Chemistry at North Carolina State University as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009 and to Full Professor in 2012. He moved his lab to the University of Pittsburgh in September 2013, where he currently is a Professor of Chemistry. His group's research interests are in the areas of Synthetic Biology and Chemical Biology, and range from the discovery of small molecule modifiers of biological pathways, medicinal chemistry, peptides and aptamers to cell, protein, and nucleic acid engineering. Alex has trained over one hundred graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates in his lab and several of the compounds and reagents that his group developed are commercially available. He has also been a faculty advisor to the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) teams at the University of Pittsburgh since 2016.
Alex is a member of the Hillman Cancer Center, the Molecular Biophysics and Structural Biology Program at the University of Pittsburgh, the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Pittsburgh, the Center for Systems Immunology at the University of Pittsburgh, and the Center for Nucleic Acids Science & Technology at Carnegie Mellon University. He has published >190 peer-reviewed papers, written six book chapters and 14 review articles, has presented over one hundred eighty research seminars, and has consulted for several pharmaceutical companies. He has several granted patents and technologies that he co-developed have been licensed by the biotech industry. Alex is a member of the editorial advisory board of ChemBioChem and ChemPhotoChem, and a member of the editorial board of Scientific Reports. He also also been a guest editor for special issues of Methods in Enzymology, Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, ChemBioChem, and ChemPhotoChem. Alex is a standing member of NIH's SBCB study review group.
For his research accomplishments, Alex received a Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Award from the March of Dimes Foundation, a Sigma Xi Research Faculty Award, a Cottrell Scholar Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a Teva USA Scholars Grant from the American Chemical Society, a Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, an American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grant, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Grant, an NCSU Alumni Association Outstanding Research Award, and a Charles E. Kaufman Foundation New Initiative Research Award. Research discoveries from his lab have been highlighted by various news outlets
For Alex's departmental webpage click here.