Success Story: CBC Senior Investigator leads the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute at Northwestern University

September 10, 2021  |  Corinna Kitcharoen

CBC Senior Investigator leads the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute at Northwestern University

Renown proteomics expert and CBC Senior Investigator Neil Kelleher named Director of Northwestern’s Chemistry of Life Processes Institute (CLP), effective September 1, 2021

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Congratulations to Neil Kelleher, NU, for being appointed Director of CLP!

Kelleher is the Walter and Mary Elizabeth Glass Professor of Chemistry, Molecular Biosciences, and Medicine at NU. He is recognized as a CBC Senior Investigator due to his recruitment to NU in 2010 with help from the CBC Recruitment Resources Funds Award. Kelleher is also director of Northwestern Proteomics, an NU-based facility that has evolved from the Proteomics Center of Excellence (PCE), which was originally established with support from CBC. Kelleher’s additional CBC awards and community contributions are listed below the article. The CBC is proud to have played a role in Kelleher’s recruitment and to have helped support his research over the years.

Enjoy the complete press coverage written by Lisa La Vallee for the Northwestern Now (reposted below).

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Northwestern Now  |  September 7, 2021  |  Lisa La Vallee

Neil Kelleher appointed director of Chemistry of Life Processes Institute

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Renowned proteomics expert Neil L. Kelleher has been named director of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute (CLP), effective Sept. 1. Kelleher succeeds Thomas O’Halloran, who led CLP since it launched in 2005.

Kelleher is the Walter and Mary Glass Professor of Molecular Biosciences and professor of chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a professor of medicine in Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Having served as CLP’s interim director since January 2021, Kelleher also is the faculty director of Northwestern Proteomics, a center of excellence within CLP, that develops novel platforms for drug discovery and diagnostics. He also is founder of the Consortium for Top-Down Proteomics and president of its board of directors and founder of the Human Proteoform Atlas, an international resource for scientists to browse uniquely observed proteoforms and to contribute their own datasets.

“Neil is a world-class researcher whose investigations have made vital contributions to the life sciences,” said Milan Mrksich, vice president for research at Northwestern. “In addition to his scientific leadership, Neil has the passion, vision and administrative skills to build great teams and pursue high-impact innovation at CLP. I thank Neil for his willingness to take on this important role, and I look forward to continuing to work with him as we keep cultivating research excellence at CLP and beyond.”

“This promises to be an exciting and high-impact period in the life of the institute, and I am honored to steer its mission to accelerate discovery and delivery of game-changing innovations to society.” —Neil Kelleher

“I look forward to partnering with CLP investigators in the coming years to tackle some of the biggest challenges in human health and disease,” Kelleher said. “This promises to be an exciting and high-impact period in the life of the institute, and I am honored to steer its mission to accelerate discovery and delivery of game-changing innovations to society.”

Kelleher joined Northwestern in 2010, after a decade on the faculty at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University and is the author of more than 300 publications. Kelleher’s research group focuses on top-down proteomics, chromatin biology and natural product biosynthesis and discovery. Contributing to both technology development and application of mass spectrometry in chemistry and biology, the Kelleher lab is interested in the biosynthesis and discovery of novel natural products with potential pharmacological activities and leverages top-down proteomics to advance and contribute to the understanding of chromatin and cancer biology. The group has a track record of training and mentoring students at the intersection of mass spectrometric technology and chemical biology. The Kelleher lab’s ProSight software suite is used in more than 1,000 labs worldwide to help analyze top-down data.

Throughout his career, Kelleher 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. He also was a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Young Investigator and a Searle Scholar. 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. Kelleher also co-founded several successful startups, including MicroMGx and Integrated Protein Technologies.

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Source:
Adapted (with modifications) from the Northwestern Now, published on September 7, 2021, by Lisa La Vallee.

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