Neal K. Devaraj (born September 7, 1980) is an American chemist and professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). His research interests include artificial cells, lipid membranes, and bioconjugation.
Education Devaraj attended college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he performed research in the lab of Professor Moungi Bawendi. In 2007, Devaraj earned his PhD in chemistry from Stanford University, where he worked in the labs of Professors James P. Collman and Christopher Chidsey.
Career and research From 2007-2011, Deveraj completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard Medical School in the lab of Professor Ralph Weissleder. In 2011, Devaraj became a faculty member in the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSD, where he is currently the Murray Goodman Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Selected publications Devaraj, NK (2018). "The Future of Bioorthogonal Chemistry". ACS Central Science. 4 (8): 952–9. doi:10.1021/acscentsci.8b00251. PMC 6107859. PMID 30159392. Wu, H; Alexander, SC; Jin, S; Devaraj, NK (2016). "A Bioorthogonal Near-Infrared Fluorogenic Probe for mRNA Detection". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 138 (36): 11429–32. doi:10.1021/jacs.6b01625. PMID 27510580. Wu, H; Yang, J; Šečkutė, J; Devaraj, NK (2014). "In situ synthesis of alkenyl tetrazines for highly fluorogenic bioorthogonal live-cell imaging probes". Angewandte Chemie International Edition in English. 53 (23): 5805–9. doi:10.1002/anie.201400135. PMC 4104127. PMID 24764312. Yang, J; Devaraj, NK (2012). "Live-Cell Imaging of Cyclopropene Tags with Fluorogenic Tetrazine Cycloadditions". Angewandte Chemie International Edition in English. 51 (30): 7476–9. doi:10.1002/ange.201202122. PMC 3431913. PMID 22696426. Yang, J; Karver, MR; Li, W; Sahu, S; Devaraj, NK (2012). "Metal-catalyzed one-pot synthesis of tetrazines directly from aliphatic nitriles and hydrazine". Angewandte Chemie International Edition in English. 51 (21): 5222–5. doi:10.1002/anie.201201117. PMC 3434974. PMID 22511586.
Awards and honors Source:
2013 - NSF CAREER Award 2016 - NIH T1D Pathfinder Award 2016 - Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award 2016 - National Fresenius Award 2017 - ACS Award in Pure Chemistry 2018 - Magomedov-Shcherbinina Memorial Prize 2018 - Blavatnik National Laureate in Chemistry 2019 - Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry 2019 - Guggenheim Fellowship 2019 - Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award 2021 - Tetrahedron Young Investigator Award 2022 - Bioconjugate Chemistry Lectureship Award 2022 - Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship
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