Marty Bollinger Receives the 2023 Abeles and Jencks Award for the Chemistry of Biological Processes

Professor Marty Bollinger, Russell and Mildred Marker Professor of Natural Products Chemistry and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State University is the recipient of the 2023 Abeles and Jencks Award for the Chemistry of Biological Processes.

The Abeles and Jencks Award for the Chemistry of Biological Processes was established to acknowledge and encourage outstanding contributions to the understanding of the chemistry of biological processes, with particular emphasis on structure, function, and mechanism. It was established in 2022 with the financial help of multiple donors. Members and friends of the DBC, many former Abeles/Jencks students/postdocs, came together to celebrate the legacies of Professors Robert H. Abeles and William P. Jencks by endowing this award in their name.

In his lab, Bollinger is primarily focused on elucidating mechanisms of metalloenzymes and metallocofactor assembly. As stated in his Penn State University profile, “Our research concerns a fascinating group of proteins that contain complex clusters of metal ions and inorganic ligands at their active sites. These proteins play essential roles in such crucial biochemical processes as nitrogen fixation, photosynthesis, oxidative phosphorylation and ribonucleotide reduction. We aim to understand the relationship between the structures and catalytic mechanisms of enzymes that employ such clusters, and to elucidate the biochemical mechanisms by which the proteins acquire their clusters.”

Please join us in congratulating Professor Bollinger for this outstanding achievement!