Prof. Dr. Günter von Kiedrowski
	NC 2/171 Telefon: +49 (0)234 32- 3218 Fax: +49 (0)234 32-14355 kiedro(at)rub.de

Curriculum vitae

Education

Studied chemistry at the University of Münster.

1983	Ph.D. in Göttingen (with L.F. Tietze): „Synthesis of Cannabinoids via Intramolecular Diels-Alder-Reactions with Inverse Electron Demand.“

Career/employment

1984	Postdoc with L.E. Orgel, Salk-Institute, La Jolla, USA.
1985-1992	Assistant professor of organic chemistry at the University of Göttingen.
1989	Offer of a Dozentenstipendium of the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie (accepted).
1992	Offer of a associate professorship at the Univ. of Cologne (declined).
1993-1995	Associate professor of organic chemistry at the University of Freiburg.
1995	Offer of a full professorship at UChicago (declined).
1996-today	Full professor of organic chemistry at the Ruhr-University, Bochum.

Major scientific achievements

1986	“A self-replicating hexadeoxynucleotide”: First example of self-replication in a minimal chemical system.
1991	First direct observation of “parabolic growth”.
1994	First demonstration of cross-catalysis in a chemical template-directed synthesis establishing a minimal example of a collectively closed autocatalytic network (Kauffman set).
1998	“Surface promoted replication and exponential amplification of DNA analogues” (SPREAD): A rather general recipe to achieve exponential amplification of template molecules using surfaces.
2000	Theoretical evidence that competition of parabolic replicators on surfaces may lead to Darwinian selection (with E. Szathmary).
2002	“Chemical copying of connectivity”: First evidence that branched DNA building blocks - used to self-assemble 3D-nanoscaffolds - can be copied and potentially replicated by chemical means.
2005	Foundation of “Systems Chemistry”: Creating and comprehensing coupled autocatalytic networks by the conjunction of kinetics, dynamic modelling, computational analysis of network species, and stereochemical analysis.

Current scientific activities

1. Autonomous SPREAD: Coupling of template-directed synthesis with chromatography is expected to overcome the limitations of parabolic growth with respect to evolvability.
2. Tetrabots: Self-assembly of multifunctional nanodevices based on tetrahedral nanoscaffolds from branched DNA and pRNA.
3. RUBiGold: Novel thermostable and monoconjugable gold clusters for nanobiotech applications.
4. Chemoton: Coupling of self-replication and membrane formation.

1. Is chairman of the COST Action CM0703 “Systems Chemistry” convening research within 48 labs in Europe. The term “Systems Chemistry” was coined by von Kiedrowski in the scientific literature in 2005. [ANIE 2005, 44, 6750, ANIE 2006, 45, 342].
2. Von Kiedrowski is founding Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Systems Chemistry (BioMed/Springer), starting in spring 2009, Editorial board member of ChemBioChem (Wiley), Astrobiology (Liebert) and other journals.
3. Was chairman of an European action in prebiotic chemistry and early evolution (COST D27).
4. Was chairman of a national researcher group on pRNA nano-biotechnology funded by the German ministery for research and education (BMBF); was chairman of another BMBF researcher group in lipid transfection.
5. Was co-founder of a research center on collective molecular organisation processes (SFB 452).
6. Is councillor of the European Astrobiology Network Association (EANA), was councillor of the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL).
7. Is external faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Study Budapest (Collegium Budapest), is on the science advisory board of the European Center for Living Technology (ECLT) in Venice and the Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Forschung (ZIF) in Bielefeld.
8. Served as Dean of Bochum faculty of chemistry from 1999-2001.
9. Scientific advisor of several biotech SMEs.

Publikationen

Publikationsliste