Gaston Richelle obtained his master degree in synthetic organic chemistry at the Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands) in 2013. Subsequently, he obtained his PhD degree cum laude at the University of Amsterdam, for the development of novel scaffold-assisted peptide cyclization methodologies that can benefit the development of novel peptide-based lead inhibitors or multicyclic antimicrobials. His PhD research was performed in close collaboration with Pepscan Therapeutics, a premier provider of peptide-based products. Since November 2017, Gaston is employed as a senior scientist at Pepscan to further develop and valorize the discoveries he made during his PhD research.
Gaston is a synthetic organic chemist by training, but is mostly fascinated by nature’s mode of action in e.g. the immune response, and uses nature as an great inspiration in his research. He is a strong believer that peptide-based pharmaceuticals will be the future.
Furthermore, Gaston likes to make people enthusiastic and fascinated about chemistry, and generally aims to improve its public image. For example, he performed in the popular Dutch TV-show ‘’BNN Proefkonijnen’’ the so-called ”Pharaoh’s Serpent” experiment. He was treasurer and member of the board of the youth division of the Royal Dutch Chemical Society (KNCV) and participated in the EYCN delegates assembly as a Dutch delegate (Guimaraes, Portugal) in 2016.
In 2010, Gaston won the ’’KNCV Golden Spatula’’ award for writing the best BSc chemistry thesis in the Netherlands. He was also selected to attend Roche Continents, a one-week meeting and workshop of 100 talents in science (Salzburg, Austria) in 2015. In 2017, Gaston was one of the 25 people selected to attend the two-week SciFinder® Future Leaders Meeting (Columbus, Ohio, USA).
