Prof. em. Dr. Christian Leumann

Professional Career:

• 1977 - 1981  graduate studies in chemistry, Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich (Switzerland).
• 1982 - 1986  Ph.D.-thesis "Biomimetic C-methylation reactions on corphin derivatives" at ETH (Prof. Albert Eschenmoser). A model study related to the sequence of the methylation steps in vitamin B12 biosynthesis.
• 1987 - 1988  Post-doc at the Chemistry Department, University of California, Berkeley (Prof. Peter G. Schultz). Synthesis and characterization of catalytic antibodies.
• 1988 - 1993  Oberassistent at the Laboratory of organic chemistry, ETH. Research work concerned with nucleic acid analogues.
• 1993 -  Professor of bioorganic chemistry at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry / Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences (since 2021), University of Bern, (Switzerland).
• 2001  Sabbatical stay (7 months) at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla (USA).
• 2011  Sabbatical stay (3 months) at the Stanford University in Palo Alto (USA)

Awards:

• 1986  Silver medal of ETH for an outstanding Ph.D. thesis.
• 1995  1995 Lectureship of the Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan
• 1997  Novartis Chemistry Lectureship 1997

Professional activities:

• 1995 - 2002  Elected member of the board of directors of the Swiss Chemical Society (SCG).
• 1999 - 2002  Elected president of the chemistry section of the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences (SANW).
• 2000 - 2009  Elected member of the research council (Forschungsrat) of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF).
• 2003 - 2006  Chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• 2004 - 2006  Vice-president of Division II of the Swiss National Science Foundation.
• 2007 - 2009  President of Division II of the Swiss National Science Foundation
• 2010 -  Member of the editorial board of the journal Chimia and Artificial DNA: PNA & XNA
• 2011 - 2016 Vice-Rector Research of the University of Bern
• 2014  President of the consolidator grant panel (physical sciences and engineering) of the temporary backup schemes of the SNF
• 2015  Rector elect, starting in August 2016
• 2016 - 2024  Rector of the University of Bern

Industrial activities:

• 2012  Co-Founder of the biotech company Synthena AG, localized in Bern