Reza Ghadiri

Professor M. Reza Ghadiri has transformed peptide chemistry through groundbreaking work on self-assembling nanostructures, molecular self-replication and biomimetic design. His laboratory pioneered cyclic peptide nanotubes, self-replicating peptide systems and novel antimicrobial agents, establishing entirely new fields at the intersection of chemistry and biology.

Ghadiri earned his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1987 under Barry M. Trost. He then completed postdoctoral training in enzymology and molecular biology with Emil T. Kaiser at Rockefeller University before joining Scripps Research, where he now serves as Professor of Chemistry and heads the Center of Evolutionary Chemical Biology.

In 1993, Ghadiri reported in Nature the first self-assembling organic nanotubes based on cyclic peptides with alternating D- and L-amino acids. These flat, ring-shaped structures stack through backbone hydrogen bonding to form hollow tubes hundreds of nanometers long. The discovery opened applications in transmembrane ion channels, molecular electronics and materials science.

Three years later, his laboratory demonstrated the first example of peptide self-replication. A 32-residue α-helical peptide based on the GCN4 leucine-zipper domain acted autocatalytically to template its own synthesis. This work, published in Nature in 1996, provided experimental support for peptide-based scenarios in origin-of-life chemistry.

Ghadiri applied the cyclic peptide architecture to create novel antibacterial agents that self-assemble into membrane-disrupting nanotubes. Published in Nature in 2001, these compounds showed high efficacy against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in mice. More recently, his team developed cyclic peptides that selectively remodel the gut microbiome, reducing cholesterol and atherosclerotic plaques in animal models.

His contributions span synthetic receptors and enzymes, biosensor arrays, molecular logic gates, nanopore DNA sequencing and autocatalytic chemical networks. Throughout this work, Ghadiri has demonstrated how rationally designed peptides can achieve sophisticated functions once thought exclusive to biology.

Ghadiri has received numerous honors including the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award and the Ronald Breslow Award for Achievement in Biomimetic Chemistry. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2001.