Rate My Professor Goncalo Bernardes

Professor Gonçalo Bernardes is Professor of Chemical Biology in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity Hall College. He earned his DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2008. Following his doctorate, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Germany and at ETH Zürich in Switzerland. He also served as Group Leader at Alfama Lda in Portugal before establishing his independent research career at the University of Cambridge in 2013 as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. He was appointed Lecturer in 2018, promoted to Reader in 2019, and advanced to Full Professor in 2022. Additionally, he chairs the Biological Research Interest Group in the Department of Chemistry.

Bernardes' research centers on chemical biology, developing site-selective and bioorthogonal chemistry to mimic nature's protein modification processes. His group engineers reactions for labeling proteins in living cells to track disease-related changes without disrupting protein structure or function. Key applications include antibody-drug conjugates for precise cancer therapy, reducing side effects through targeted delivery. Notable publications include 'Advances in chemical protein modification' (Chemical Reviews, 2015), 'Inverse electron demand Diels–Alder reactions in chemical biology' (Chemical Society Reviews, 2017), 'Site-selective protein-modification chemistry for basic biology and drug development' (Nature Chemistry, 2016), 'Contemporary approaches to site-selective protein modification' (Nature Reviews Chemistry, 2019), and 'Biomimetic peptide self-assembly for functional materials' (Nature Reviews Chemistry, 2020). He has received the Harrison–Meldola Memorial Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2016, the Young Chemical Biologist Award from the International Chemical Biology Society in 2020, the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientist in the UK in 2021, and the EFMC-WuXi AppTec Award for Excellence in Chemical Biology. Bernardes has been awarded three European Research Council grants, reflecting his significant contributions to advancing chemical tools for biological and therapeutic applications.