Xile Hu awarded 2014 EUROBIC Medal
© 2014 EPFL
Xile Hu has been awarded the European Medal for Bio-Inorganic Chemistry for 2014, recognizing his achievements in biomimetic chemistry.
The European Medal for Bio-Inorganic Chemistry is awarded every two years to “a European scientist, or a scientist with a career in Europe, for excellence and impact in the field of Bioinorganic chemistry.” The award was founded in 1992, when the first European Biological Inorganic Chemistry (EuroBIC) conference took place in Newcastle, UK, and has been endowed by the Royal Society of Chemistry since 1993. Since 2008, the Medal has been primarily awarded to young or mid-career scientists in the field.
This year, the EuroBIC Medal has been awarded to Xile Hu at EPFL. Hu is being recognized for his achievements in the field of biomimetics, which is a field of chemistry that imitates natural systems to solve human problems. Xile Hu’s work has focused on the enzyme Fe-hydrogenase, which catalyzes the activation of molecular hydrogen. Hu recently succeeded in integrating model complexes with the apoenzyme of hydrogenase, providing “unprecedented, molecular-level insights into the mechanism of [Fe]-hydrogenase activity”. It is this successful track record in biomimetic chemistry that the EUROBIC Medal recognizes.
The award ceremony took place during the 12th EUROBIC conference (24-28 August 2014). As winner of the Medal, Xile Hu was invited to give a plenary lecture on his work.