Morten Meldal (age 50, Danish), Professor at Carlsberg Laboratory and Adj. Professor at DTU. Director of the SPOCC Centre. He has been the leader of the synthesis group at the Carlsberg Laboratory since 1988 and was in 1996 appointed as Adj. Professor at the Technical University of Denmark. The synthesis group comprises of on average 10 scientific and 4 technical staff members. He has a degree in engineering and a technical Ph.D. degree in the synthetic chemistry of oligosaccharides. From 1983-1988 he worked as independent research associate in organic chemistry at The Technical University of Denmark and University of Copenhagen. In 1985-1986 he was a postdoctoral research associate at Medical Research Council Center, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, England. He was the 1996 winner of the NKT Research Award for Chemistry, the recipient of the 1996 Leonidas Zerwas Award from the European Peptide Society and in 1997 he received the Ellen and Niels Bjerrum Gold Medal in chemistry. In May 2004 Morten Meldal was appointed, for a period of 5 years, as associate professor in Combinatorial Chemistry, at the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The group has published more than 250 publications and reviews in international journals and filed 20 patents describing work in many different areas of organic and bioorganic chemistry. 

His research interest are: 

• Molecular recognition
• Artificial receptors
• Artificial enzymes and catalysis
• Polymer chemistry 
• Organic synthesis 
• Peptide and glycopeptide synthesis 
• Glycobiology and molecular immunology 
• Enzymology and enzyme inhibition 
• Combinatorial technology
• Molecular libraries and mimics. 
• Nanoscale structure analysis by MS and MAS-NMR. 

He has pioneered new techniques and automation in peptide, glycopeptide and organic combinatorial synthesis. In addition, new chemistry in the form of protecting groups and activation schemes has been invented and a large variety of biochemically relevant peptides and glycopeptides from Carlsberg Laboratory form the basis of successful collaborations in the field of enzymology and immunology. The synthesis group has developed a large variety of supports for solid phase synthesis and enzymology. Novel solid phase assays for enzymes based on resonance energy transfer have been introduced and the research has been aimed at the development of novel protease inhibitors by combinatorial methods. We have a strong interest in glycopeptide mimics of natural oligosaccharides. There is currently a strong focus on development of organic synthesis on our novel solid supports.  Most recently the research has been focussed on peptido organic receptors and catalysts that resemble natural enzymes in structure but carry a central transition metal complex

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