Two distinguished chemists with deep ties to peptide and protein science, Professor Laura L. Kiessling and Professor Ronald T. Raines, both at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have received the 2026 van 't Hoff Lectureship Award from the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. The American Peptide Society is delighted to recognize the achievement. Ronald Raines is also a previous winner of the Society's own Vincent du Vigneaud Award.
Established in 1957, the award honors the memory of Dutch chemist Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, the first Nobel laureate in Chemistry, recognized in 1901. It celebrates scientists whose research opens new directions in chemistry. Van 't Hoff's tetrahedral model of carbon laid the foundation of stereochemistry, making chirality, a molecule's property of being non-superimposable on its mirror image, a fitting theme for the symposium at which the two were honored. Kiessling and Raines received the award on June 4 during the 2026 van 't Hoff Symposium on Chirality at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, where they joined an international group of researchers presenting the latest advances in the field.
Kiessling, the Novartis Professor of Chemistry, uses chemical biology to uncover the biological roles of carbohydrates and the mechanisms behind carbohydrate recognition; she presented her work on stereochemistry and carbohydrate recognition. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, her honors include the ACS Willard Gibbs Award and the Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry.
Raines, the Roger and Georges Firmenich Professor of Natural Products Chemistry, draws on synthetic chemistry and cell biology to illuminate the chemical basis of protein structure and function, presenting his findings on stereoelectronic effects in proteins. Beyond the du Vigneaud Award, his honors include the AstraZeneca Protein and Peptide Science Award, the ACS Ralph F. Hirschmann Award, and the Royal Society of Chemistry's Khorana Prize.
The American Peptide Society extends its congratulations to both recipients on this well-deserved recognition.
