chemistry

Hartmuth C. Kolb

Hartmuth C. Kolb is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hartmuth C. Kolb rather than just read about it. In short: Hartmuth Christian Kolb (born 10 August 1964) is a German chemist. He is considered one of the founders of click chemistry.

Key takeaways

Hartmuth C. Kolb belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hartmuth C. Kolb to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hartmuth C. Kolb from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hartmuth Christian Kolb (born 10 August 1964) is a German chemist. He is considered one of the founders of click chemistry.

Early life and education After graduating from high school in Marsberg in 1983, Kolb studied at the University of Hanover under the direction of Professor H.M.R. Hoffmann. He received his doctorate in 1991 as an academic student of Steven Ley at Imperial College London with a thesis on preparative organic chemistry (Synthesis of the decalin fragment of azadirachtin). As a postdoctoral fellow he worked with Barry Sharpless at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

Career He then worked in the research department of Ciba-Geigy in Basel from 1993 to 1997 before taking up a managerial position at Coelacanth Corporation, founded by Sharpless and A. Bader in Princeton, New Jersey. Coelacanth was eventually acquired by Lexicon Pharmaceuticals. In 2002, Kolb obtained an associate professorship in the Department of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute. Kolb later obtained a professorship at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2004 Kolb returned to industry and became Vice President of Molecular Imaging Biomarker Research at Siemens Healthcare in Culver City, California. In 2013, Siemens sold two of the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) radiotracers developed there to Eli Lilly and Company, most notably the Tau PET tracer [18F]-T807 (aka AV1451, Flortaucipir, Tauvid), now FDA approved for PET imaging of the brain to estimate the density and distribution of aggregated tau neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in adult patients with cognitive impairment who are being evaluated for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Simultaneously, Kolb joined Avid Radiopharmaceuticals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company, as vice president of research, and later Janssen Research & Development (Johnson & Johnson) as vice president of Neuroscience Biomarkers & Global Imaging. After leaving Johnson & Johnson in 2024, he joined Enigma Biomedical Group as their Chief Scientific Officer to focus on the development of CNS imaging tracers. He is also Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Work Together with Barry Sharpless and M.G. Finn, Kolb developed the concept of click chemistry, an approach to simplify synthesis by focusing on a few chemical reactions that are similar in nature. The associated scientific publication Click chemistry: diverse chemical function from a few good reactions has been cited more than 20,000 times (as of 2025) and was the foundation for the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for K. Barry Sharpless, Carolyn Bertozzi and Morten Meldal. Kolb refined the method by combining it as in-situ click chemistry with microfluidic processes. This makes it particularly easy to synthesize new inhibitors for various enzymes.

Kolb's more recent work deals with the synthesis of new tracers for positron emission tomography (e.g. for detecting the tau protein in Alzheimer's disease) and with the clinical testing of these tracers, a key highlight being [18F]-T807, also known as AV1451, Flortaucipir, Tauvid, which was approved in 2020 by the US food and drug administration (FDA) for imaging neurofibrillary tangles in adults who are being evaluated for Alzheimer's Disease. Kolb's lab has developed a blood plasma assay for phospho-217-Tau (p217Tau), which shows potential as a highly accurate peripheral biomarker for amyloid and Tau status in Alzheimer's Disease.

Awards Kolb was chosen as the recipient of the 2015 Alzheimer Award by the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and he was one of the recipients of the Royal Society of Chemistry 2021 Organic Division Horizon Prize: Robert Robinson Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hartmuth C. Kolb

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hartmuth C. Kolb claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hartmuth C. Kolb before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hartmuth C. Kolb ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hartmuth C. Kolb

In research: Hartmuth C. Kolb appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hartmuth C. Kolb in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hartmuth C. Kolb is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1964 births, 20th-century German chemists, 21st-century German chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hartmuth C. Kolb outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hartmuth C. Kolb in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hartmuth C. Kolb means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hartmuth C. Kolb out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hartmuth C. Kolb in simple terms?

Hartmuth Christian Kolb (born 10 August 1964) is a German chemist. He is considered one of the founders of click chemistry.

Why does Hartmuth C. Kolb matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hartmuth C. Kolb?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hartmuth C. Kolb.