Neil Kelleher receives the 2024 Christian B. Anfinsen Award from the Protein Society

Neil Kelleher has been honored with the 2024 Christian B. Anfinsen Award from the Protein Society.

The Anfinsen award recognizes technological achievement or significant methodological advances in the field of protein science. and in Neil’s case, specifically his seminal contributions to top-down proteomics and the broad and revolutionary impact of his work on biology and medicine.

Kelleher is the Walter and Mary Glass Professor of Molecular Biosciences and professor of chemistry in Weinberg College, and he has served as CLP’s interim director since January of 2021. Kelleher also is the faculty director of Northwestern Proteomics, a center of excellence within CLP, and he is the founder of the Consortium for Top-Down Proteomics, the Human Proteoform Atlas, and several start-ups, including MicroMGx and Integrated Protein Technologies.

Kelleher joined Northwestern in 2010, and his research group focuses on top-down proteomics, chromatin biology, and natural product biosynthesis and discovery. After earning his Ph.D. from Cornell University, Kelleher taught at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign for 10 years.

He is the author of more than 300 publications and has received many honors, including the Arthur P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, Packard Fellowship, Dreyfus Award for New Investigators, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, Lilly Analytical Chemistry Award, and National Institutes of Health Career Transition Award. Kelleher was also a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Young Investigator and a Searle Scholar, and in 2004, he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers— the nation’s highest honor for professionals at the outset of their independent research careers.