The Gesellschaft für Chemische Technik und Biotechnologie (DECHEMA) has awarded the Young Scientists Prize for Natural Products Research to Prof. Dr. Philipp Heretsch. Heretsch is junior professor for organic synthesis and catalysis at the Institut für Chemie und Biochemie.

His research group develops novel strategies for the manipulation of C–C bonds,to be applied in the synthesis of complex natural products, particularly the abeo steroids and nor-triterpenes. Therefore he makes use of the (presumed) biosynthetic pathways of these natural products, analyzes the natural reactivity of intermediates and thus develops novel cascades of rearrangements. A special view is always devoted to their biological profile, besides the structural complexity of the target molecules.

In 2015 Heretsch accepted a position as junior professor at the Freie Universität Berlin. He studied chemistry at the Universität Leipzig (2001 – 2006), where he got his Ph.D. in 2009, supported by scholarships of the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie. With a scholarship of the National Academy of Sciences – Leopoldina he continued his research with K.C. Nicolaou in San Diego and Houston. In 2018 his research work was already awarded with the renowned ADUC prize.

Every year the DECHEMA awards a young scientist whose papers show outstanding originality, wllingness to take risks and international scientific significance. The prize was awarded on February 20th, 2020 on the occasion of the 32nd "Irseer Naturstofftage".

- BKi