Today, as director of the Novartis Research Foundation's new Genomics Institute, Schultz is boning up on genetics. But he also keeps one foot planted in pure science. His lab at the Scripps Research Institute, where he starts his day by 5 a.m., uses combinatorial methods to study everything from nanotechnology to organ regeneration. His scientists have invented 80 new amino acids and used them to make proteins seen nowhere in nature, and they are trying to create an artificial bacterium with two extra bases in its dna and five unnatural amino acids in its proteins. "The question is," says Schultz, "Why are there only four bases in our dna and only 20 amino acids in our proteins? What would life look like if God had worked on the seventh day and made a few more?" If anyone can answer that question, Schultz can.
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Name: Peter Schultz Age: 44 Why critics are taking note: His "combinatorial" chemistry is now widely used to discover new drugs and bio materials |
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Peter Schultz UC Berkeley College of Chemistry Combinatorial Chemistry Resource Site
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