The German Chemical Society, GDCh, has awarded the Emil Fischer Medal to Prof. Helma Wennemers for her research on synthetic peptides. The medal will be presented on September 7, 2026, at the 24th ORCHEM conference, held from September 7 to 9 at the University of Freiburg and organized by the Liebig Association for Organic Chemistry. ORCHEM ranks among the most significant conferences in organic chemistry, with a program spanning synthesis, catalysis, methodology, and reactivity.
The Emil Fischer Medal is among the oldest distinctions in the field. Carl Duisberg established it in 1912 to mark the sixtieth birthday of Emil Fischer, who is widely regarded as the father of peptide chemistry and who received the 1909 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on sugars and purines. Awarded every two years for outstanding achievement in organic chemistry, the medal places Wennemers in a lineage that reaches back to the origins of the discipline she works in. In receiving it, she becomes the first woman to be awarded the Emil Fischer Medal in its more than century-long history.
The GDCh recognized Wennemers for demonstrating that synthetically produced peptides can carry out functions normally reserved for large macromolecules. Her tripeptides act as asymmetric catalysts, accelerating chemical reactions in minute quantities, and in flow reactors they enable continuous synthesis on a multigram scale. Her group has also developed a supramolecular weave, cell-penetrating peptides, and functional synthetic collagen. A probe from her laboratory detects collagen remodeling in tumors and scar tissue, work that ETH Zürich named its most important invention of 2020.
“It is a great honor to receive the Emil Fischer Medal, named after the father of peptide chemistry,” Wennemers said. “This recognition of my laboratory’s long-standing interests of peptides in stereoselective catalysis, chemical biology, and supramolecular chemistry means a lot. Many thanks to the GDCh and a heartfelt thank you to all my wonderful co-workers, both past and present.”
The recognition arrives only months after the Saxon Academy of Sciences awarded Wennemers the Wilhelm Ostwald Medal in May, capping a remarkable year. Where Ostwald was honored as the scientist who defined catalysis, Fischer is remembered as the founder of peptide chemistry, and Wennemers now carries both names on her mantel.
Wennemers is Professor of Organic Chemistry at ETH Zürich and a long-standing presence within the global peptide community. She received the American Peptide Society’s Vincent du Vigneaud Award in 2023 and delivered an award lecture at that year’s American Peptide Symposium in Scottsdale. The American Peptide Society warmly congratulates her on this distinction.
