Altmann, Karl-Heinz, Prof.

Research Interests

• Total synthesis of biologically active natural products.

• Biological and pharmacological profiling of biologically active natural products and their synthetic and semi-synthetic analogs with the ultimate goal to identify new drug candidates

Education & Positions held

July 2003 – current
Professor of Pharmaceutical Biology at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich.

Jan. 2003 – June 2003
Global Head of Chemistry ad interim, Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research

Nov. 2000 – Dec. 2002
Novartis Pharma Senior Chemistry Expert, Head of the Scientific Chemistry Council, Member of the Global Research Management Board

Jan. 1997 - Oct. 2000
Program Team Head for the “Epothilone Program“, Therapeutic Area Oncology. Novartis Pharma Research

Jan. 1995 – Dec. 1996
Project and group leader, Ciba Central Research Laboratories, Project “Modified antisense oligonucleotides“ (building block design and synthesis). Co-management of collaboration with ISIS Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad CA , and Ciba’s Central Research Laboratories in Macclesfield , UK . As of June 1996, also head of the central oligonucleotide synthesis lab within CRL, vice section head (Nucleic Acid Chemistry)

Sept. 1990 – Dec. 1994
Research scientist at the Central Research Laboratories (CRL) of Ciba-Geigy AG, Basel . As of Sept. 1992, project leader (Section "Nucleic Acid Chemistry").

Sept. 1989 - Aug. 1990
Maître-assistant at the Institute of Organic Chemistry , University of Lausanne . Research topic: Synthesis and conformational properties of peptides incorporating, a-methylated a-amino acids

Feb. 1987 - Aug. 1989
Postdoctoral studies with Prof. H. A. Scheraga at the Department of Chemistry, Cornell University , Ithaca , New York , USA .
Research topic: A. Synthesis and disulfide-equilibrium studies of the C58-C72-fragment of bovine ribonuclease A. B. Synthesis of proline- or cysteine-containing host-guest poly(amino acids) for the asssessment of helical parameters for L-Pro and L-Cys.

May 1983 - Dec. 1986
Ph. D. work with Prof. Dr. M. Mutter at the Johannes-Gutenberg University , Mainz , FRG (until Jan. 1984) and the University of Basel .
Ph. D. awarded with "summa cum laude" ( University of Basel ). Title of Ph. D. thesis: "Design, Synthesis, and conformational Studies of Polypeptides with bab-Folding Topology".

May 1983
Diploma in chemistry (Prof. Dr. M. Mutter). Thesis entitled: "Synthesis und Conformational Studies on Host-Guest peptides and on Thermolysin 75 - 84"

Oct. 1976 – March 1977; April 1978 - May 1982
Undergraduate studies in chemistry at the Johannes-Gutenberg Universität, Mainz , FRG (interrupted between April 1977 and March 1978 to perform mandatory civil service)