Dirk Trauner Named an Honorary Skou Professor at Aarhus University in Denmark

Dirk Trauner, George A. Weiss University Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacology, has been named an Honorary Skou Professor of Pharmacology and Biomedicine at Aarhus University in Denmark. Honorary Skou Professors are a group of special adjunct professors to introduce new perspectives to teaching, strengthen relations with leading research units abroad, and establish joint research projects and funding applications.

Trauner holds joint appointments in Chemistry in Penn Arts & Sciences and the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics in the Perelman School of Medicine. He is a global leader in synthetic chemistry and physiology. His pioneering research in photopharmacology focuses on the use of light to control biological pathways, including the possibilities of restoring vision to the blind, targeting the delivery of drug therapies, and developing new directions in precision medicine. This work brings together synthetic chemistry with biology and neuroscience to innovate not only new scientific methods but also new therapies that can tangibly improve people’s lives around the world. Along similar lines, his lab employs advanced techniques of chemical synthesis to learn more about the origin, structure, and biological meaning of natural products.

Trauner’s many honors include the Otto Bayer Award, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society, the Emil Fischer Medal of the German Chemical Society, the Kitasato Microbial Chemistry Medal, and a National Science Foundation Career Award, among numerous other honors.