It is with great sadness that we announce the news that Professor Luis Moroder passed away on 18 May 2024. He was 84 years old. His loss will be deeply felt by his family, friends and the peptide community at large.
Luis Moroder (born December 6, 1940) is an Italian peptide chemist who pioneered the study of interactions between peptide hormones and cell membrane-bound hormone receptors. He later extended this research to other biological systems of medical importance, such as protein inhibitors, collagens, and synthetic proteins. A distinctive feature of his research is interdisciplinary, reflected in the use and development of methods in organic chemistry, biophysics and molecular biology.
Moroder’s career has followed the arc of development of the peptide field. After his undergraduate studies he received his Ph.D. in 1965 at the at the University of Padua in the laboratory of Professor Ernesto Scofone with a doctoral thesis on the synthesis of the S-peptide of ribonuclease A.
His postdoctoral fellowship in 1968 at the University of Pittsburgh with Professor Klaus H. Hoffman was on the chemical synthesis of peptide adrenocorticotropic hormone and its derivatives.
Moroder obtained his habilitation in 1971 at the University of Padua in natural product chemistry. In 1975 he became a senior researcher in the Department of Peptide Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry (MPIB) in Martinsried, headed by Erich Wünsch. From 1991 to 2008, he was the head of the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry at MFIB. Since 1994, he has been an assistant professor, and from 1997-1998 professor of Biochemistry and Biotechnology at the Technical University of Munich.
Luis Moroder has authored more than 500 publications and mentored many students during his long academic career.
He is co-editor of the five-volume Houben-Weyl, Methods of Organic Chemistry, Peptide Synthesis and Peptidomimetics.
From 2008 to 2019, he was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Peptide Science, the official journal of the European Peptide Society.
Over the years he was awarded with:
• 1995: Max-Bergmann-Medal of the MBK Society;
• 2004: Josef Rüdinger Prize of the European Peptide Society;
• 2011: Doctor honoris causa, Sergi-Pontoise University, Paris;
• 2018: Japan Peptide Society Akabori Memorial Lecture Award;
• 2020: Ernesto Scofone Award of the Italian Peptide Society;
Professor Moroder was a unique and unforgettable person. He was an outstanding peptide chemist and biochemist. The passion and advocacy for scientific quality and morality in science was liked by the people he met. It was always clear to those who knew him that he expected high standards from his scientific colleagues.
He maintained these standards throughout the time he was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Peptide Science.
Professor Moroder leaves behind his wife Annemarie and family, countless undergraduates, PhD students and peptide chemists who were fortunate enough to know him over the years.
Bulgarian Peptide Society