Announcements

We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Tu Youyou Award has been conferred upon Richard DiMarchi and Rolf Müller, in recognition of their significant contributions to natural products chemistry and medicinal chemistry.

Richard DiMarchi Indiana University, USA	Prof. Richard DiMarchi is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Gill Chair in Biomolecular Sciences at Indiana University, USA. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Dr. DiMarchi is a former Group Vice President at Eli Lilly and later at Novo Nordisk. He is recognized for his contributions to the discovery and development of rDNA-derived Humulin®, Humalog®, rGlucagon®, and Forteo®. His academic research has broadened the understanding of glucagon and incretin physiology and pioneered the discovery of single-molecule multi-mechanism agonists for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. The central element to success has been the chemical vision and technology to install within single molecules simultaneous agonism at related G-protein coupled receptors, coupled to the counter-intuitive discovery that glucagon and GIP agonism could synergize the therapeutic efficacy of GLP-1. These peptides and their conceptual approach have transformed the management of excessive body weight to a condition comparable to how hypertension, adult-onset diabetes, and excess cholesterol are medicinally managed.
“Professor DiMarchi was recognized by the 2024 Tu Youyou Award Committee members as being an exceptional leader in the medicinal chemistry of peptides and proteins of natural origin, and as a pioneer in the field of chemical biotechnology. His very important discoveries have led to breakthroughs in new drugs related to the therapy of diabetes and obesity. He has been named as an inventor on a very large number of patents, and he has had initially a highly successful scientific and administrative career in industry, which was followed by over two decades in academia as a distinguished professor.” —Prof. Dr. A. Douglas Kinghorn, Chair of the Award Committee
Rolf Müller Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), Germany; Helmholtz Centre for Infections Research (HZI), Germany; Saarland University, Germany	Prof. Rolf Müller is the Founding and Managing Director of the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) and Professor of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at Saarland University, Germany. Having received his training from the University of Bonn, he held research positions at the University of Washington, USA, and Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany, prior to his appointment as professor to Saarland University. His laboratory has dedicated itself to the exploration of bacterial natural-product biosynthetic pathways for more than 20 years and has extensive experience in working with myxobacteria and other microbial producer strains. Starting from the isolation and characterization of new microorganisms, the scope of work includes microbiology-, biotechnology-, bioinformatics-, and chemistry-based approaches to exploit these isolates as sources of new drugs with a special focus on novel anti-infectives. Müller and his team apply a variety of state-of-the-art analytical methods and biological assays to perform biological and chemical characterizations of the identified compounds. Prof. Müller has received several awards, including the prestigious Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, the PHOENIX Pharmacy Research Award, the DECHEMA Prize, and the Inhoffen Medal, as well as being an elected member of acatech, Leopoldina, and the German Academy of Sciences and Literature.
“The 2024 Tu Youyou Award Committee members were highly impressed by the truly outstanding past and ongoing contributions of Professor Müller in both microbial natural products isolation chemistry and in biosynthesis, as well as in the development of lead compounds for their potential in treating human diseases, through his global connections with various major funding agencies. He is also a dedicated teacher who has trained numerous graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and he has lectured on his research in countries all over the world.” —Prof. Dr. A. Douglas Kinghorn, Chair of the Award Committee

The achievements of Richard DiMarchi and Rolf Müller highlight the transformative impact of natural products chemistry and medicinal chemistry. We congratulate them and invite the global academic community and public to join us in celebrating their significant contributions.

2024 Award Committee
Committee Chair:

• Prof. Dr. A. Douglas Kinghorn, Ohio State University, USA.
  

Committee Members (listed in alphabetical order):

• Prof. Angelo Fontana, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italy;
• Prof. Binghe Wang, Georgia State University, USA;
• Dr. Diana Pinto, University of Aveiro, Portugal;
• Prof. Hideaki Kakeya, Kyoto University, Japan;
• Dr. RuAngelie Edrada-Ebel, University of Strathclyde, UK;
• Prof. Thomas Prisinzano, University of Kentucky, USA
• Prof. Wei Li, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, USA.

About the Tu Youyou Award:
The 2024 Tu Youyou Award includes a total monetary prize of 100,000 Swiss Francs and a medal for each recipient. Established in 2016 to honor the pioneering spirit of Nobel laureate Tu Youyou, the Tu Youyou Award is an international award honoring exceptional scholars dedicated to the fields of natural products chemistry and medicinal chemistry.

For further information about the award and the winners, please visit the Tu Youyou Award website.

We are pleased to share that Biomolecules (ISSN: 2218-273X) has received an updated CiteScore of 9.2 in June 2025. The CiteScore ranks the journal 64 out of 441 titles (Q1) in the “Biochemistry” category and 77 out of 410 titles (Q1) in the “Molecular Biology” category, an impressive achievement for a journal running in Volume 15.

You can find more statistics on https://www.mdpi.com/journal/biomolecules/stats.

The current CiteScores measure the average number of citations within a journal over a four-year window (2021–2024). The Scopus database provides a comprehensive suite of metrics that support informed publishing strategies, research evaluation and enable benchmarking of journal performance.

This achievement reflects the collective efforts of our authors, reviewers, and editors. Together we will continue to track the progress of Biomolecules and its growing impact in the intersection between chemistry, biology, molecular medicine and material sciences.

A message from the Webinar Chair:

Neurodegeneration inevitably leads to cognitive impairment, significantly altering the quality of life of those affected. Neuroinflammatory diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and stroke, are associated with memory loss caused by neuronal function impairment. During the past decade, greater attention has been paid to the vascular effects involved in cognitive decline. The topic of vascular cognitive impairment and dementia has been identified as one of the NIH’s research priorities.
Many of these neuroinflammatory responses are associated with changes in the systemic circulation and brain vasculature. Various mechanisms, stemming from the vasculature, involved in neurodegeneration and cognitive decline, have been identified and validated. However, many more questions still remain to be answered. The main reason for this is the functional complexity of the neuro-vascular unit and the number of cells that can affect vasculo-neuronal interactions during various neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases.

Date: 24 June 2025
Time: 8:00 p.m. CEST | 2:00 p.m. EDT
Webinar ID: 868 0071 2611
Webinar Secretariat: journal.webinar@mdpi.com

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the webinar. Registrations made using academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.

Unable to attend? Register anyway, and we will let you know when the recording is available.

Register now for free!

Program:

Webinar Chair and Keynote Speakers:

• Prof. Dr. David Lominadze (Chair), Department of Surgery, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA and Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL 33612, USA;
• Dr. Nurul Sulimai, Department of Surgery, University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine, Tampa, FL 33612, USA;
• Dr. Andriy Yabluchanskiy, Vascular Cognitive Impairment, Neurodegeneration, and Healthy Brain Aging Program, Department of Neurosurgery, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA.

MDPI will be attending the 20th Asian Chemical Congress, which will be held from 23 to 27 June 2025 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The 20th Asian Chemical Congress (20ACC) is particularly noteworthy as it focuses on the responsible chemical sciences for world sustainability theme, making it an event of even greater significance than ever before. This conference is undoubtedly especially suited for the chemistry and chemical sciences field, as they are playing an ever-growing role in tackling global environmental, health, and energy issues. The conference program will cover all the traditional chemistry disciplines and feature exceptional content that reflects the expertise of the global chemistry network. Gathering participants from around the region and the world, this exciting congress offers an excellent platform for engaging conversations, fruitful collaborations, and valuable networking opportunities.

The following MDPI journals will be represented at the conference:

• Molbank;
• Analytica;
• Biomolecules;
• Toxics.

If you are planning to attend the above conference, we encourage you to visit our booth and speak to our representatives. We are eager to meet you in person and assist you with any queries that you may have.

For more information about the conference, please visit the official website at https://acc2025thailand.com/.

Conference: ESEB 2025 Congress
Organization: European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB)
Date: 17–22 August 2025
Place: The International Convention Centre of Barcelona (CCIB), Barcelona, Spain

MDPI journals will be attending ESEB 2025 as exhibitors. This meeting will be held in Barcelona, Spain, from 17 to 22 August 2025.

ESEB congresses are renowned for being among the largest in the field of evolutionary biology, attracting 1400–1700 participants from around the globe. The ESEB congress will cover empirical, computational, and theoretical work across the broad field of evolutionary biology, including, among other areas, the following ones: molecular evolution, evolutionary genetics and genomics, population genetics and genomics, phylogenetics, comparative genomics, phylogenomics, systematics, paleontology, paleoecology, models and methods in evolution, life histories, evolutionary ecology, evolution and development, micro- and macro-evolution studies, origin and early evolution of life, organismal evolution, origin and evolution of relevant traits and clades, evolutionary medicine, microbial evolution, coevolution, and reticulated evolution.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Biology;
• Diversity;
• Genes;
• Biomolecules;
• JDB;
• Life;
• Microbiology Research;
• Applied Microbiology;
• MPs;
• Applied Biosciences;
• DNA;
• J.

If you will be attending this conference, please feel free to start a conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following website: https://eseb2025.com/.

As all of the articles published in our journal are open access, you have free and unlimited access to the full text. We welcome you to read our most highly cited papers published in 2023 and 2024, which are listed below:

1. “Advances in AI for Protein Structure Prediction: Implications for Cancer Drug Discovery and Development”
by Xinru Qiu, Han Li, Greg Ver Steeg and Adam Godzik
Biomolecules 2024, 14(3), 339; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom14030339
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/14/3/339

2. “Identification of an Autophagy-Related Signature for Prognosis and Immunotherapy Response Prediction in Ovarian Cancer”
by Jinye Ding, Chunyan Wang, Yaoqi Sun, Jing Guo, Shupeng Liu and Zhongping Cheng
Biomolecules 2023, 13(2), 339; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13020339
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/13/2/339

3. “Graph Random Forest: A Graph Embedded Algorithm for Identifying Highly Connected Important Features”
by Leqi Tian, Wenbin Wu and Tianwei Yu
Biomolecules 2023, 13(7), 1153; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13071153
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/13/7/1153

4. “Using GPT-3 to Build a Lexicon of Drugs of Abuse Synonyms for Social Media Pharmacovigilance”
by Kristy A. Carpenter and Russ B. Altman
Biomolecules 2023, 13(2), 387; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13020387
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/13/2/387

5. “In Silico Screening and Optimization of Cell-Penetrating Peptides Using Deep Learning Methods”
by Hyejin Park, Jung-Hyun Park, Min Seok Kim, Kwangmin Cho and Jae-Min Shin
Biomolecules 2023, 13(3), 522; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13030522
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/13/3/522

6. “Quality Control—A Stepchild in Quantitative Proteomics: A Case Study for the Human CSF Proteome”
by Svitlana Rozanova, Julian Uszkoreit, Karin Schork, Bettina Serschnitzki, Martin Eisenacher, Lars Tönges, Katalin Barkovits-Boeddinghaus and Katrin Marcus
Biomolecules 2023, 13(3), 491; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13030491
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/13/3/491

7. “Quantitative Proteomic Characterization of Foreign Body Response towards Silicone Breast Implants Identifies Chronological Disease-Relevant Biomarker Dynamics”
by Ines Schoberleitner, Klaus Faserl, Bettina Sarg, Daniel Egle, Christine Brunner and Dolores Wolfram
Biomolecules 2023, 13(2), 305; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13020305
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/13/2/305

8. “On the Best Way to Cluster NCI-60 Molecules”
by Saiveth Hernández-Hernández and Pedro J. Ballester
Biomolecules 2023, 13(3), 498; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13030498
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/13/3/498

9. “Hybrid Multitask Learning Reveals Sequence Features Driving Specificity in the CRISPR/Cas9 System”
by Dhvani Sandip Vora, Shashank Yadav and Durai Sundar
Biomolecules 2023, 13(4), 641; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom13040641
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/13/4/641

10. “BSA Binding and Aggregate Formation of a Synthetic Amino Acid with Potential for Promoting Fibroblast Proliferation: An In Silico, CD Spectroscopic, DLS, and Cellular Study”
by Hayarpi Simonyan, Rosanna Palumbo, Satenik Petrosyan, Anna Mkrtchyan, Armen Galstyan, Ashot Saghyan, Pasqualina Liana Scognamiglio, Caterina Vicidomini, Marta Fik-Jaskólka and Giovanni N. Roviello
Biomolecules 2024, 14(5), 579; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom14050579
Full text available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/14/5/579

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Bart Ellenbroek has been appointed Section Editor-in-Chief of Section “Biological Factors” in Biomolecules (ISSN: 2218-273X).

Prof. Dr. Bart Ellenbroek is a Full Professor and head of the School of Psychological Sciences, at Victoria University of Wellington. His research primarily focuses on neuroscience, addiction, schizophrenia, and behavioral pharmacology. Prof. Dr. Bart Ellenbroek has published over 200 articles in prestigious international peer-reviewed journals and has an H-index above 46.

Biological factors play a fundamental role in shaping physiological functions, disease development, and stress responses. The Section “Biological Factors” covers papers on these factors: endogenous molecules, signaling pathways, genetic regulators, and environmental influences. They collectively modulate cellular and organismal behavior. The section highlights the impact of these factors on health and disease.

This Section invites and publishes original contributions, reviews, and discovery articles that include but are not limited to the following:

• Cytokine;
• Growth factors;
• Hypoxia-inducible factor;
• Neurotransmitter;
• Dopamine receptor;
• Transcription factor;
• Hormones;
• Redox signaling;
• Essential trace element.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Bart Ellenbroek, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing:

1. What aspects of the journal attracted and motivated you to become its Section Editor-in-Chief?
Biomolecules is a broad-based open access journal that attracts a wide and interested readership. I was thrilled by its dedicated Section focusing on biological factors, as it is now attracting high-quality submissions, which significantly advance the field.

2. What is your vision for this Section?
This Section aims to serve as an excellent platform for biologists, endocrinologists, geneticists, and neuroscientists to showcase their cutting-edge research on biological factors, thereby expanding the frontiers of the field.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
Research on biological factors is a highly dynamic field. It encompasses a wide range of endogenous and exogenous elements that influence physiological and pathological processes. The study of biological factors is set for transformative advances, driven by emerging technologies. Future research will deepen our understanding of dynamic interactions between genetic, molecular, and environmental factors, enabling precision medicine, targeted therapies, and personalized nutrition.

4. Do you have any suggestions for young researchers in this field?
Research is a journey of continuous learning and growth. Be persistent, curious, and open to new ideas and approaches. Young researchers should always stay updated and collaborate with others to keep themselves aware of the latest advancements, trends, and publications in their research area. In addition, attend conferences and join professional networks to stay connected with the research community to seek fruitful collaborations with other researchers, both within and outside your institution. In my experience, collaborations provide opportunities for exchanging knowledge, learning from others' expertise, and conducting interdisciplinary research.

5. What do you think of the development of open access in the publishing field?
It is an essential trend in the field of publication. We can continue working together through open access to ensure our peer-reviewed research serves the scientific community.

We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Bart Ellenbroek as the Section Editor-in-Chief of “Biological Factors”, and we look forward to him leading Biomolecules to achieve many more milestones.

Conference: The 56th Symposium of the Polish Society of Histochemists and Cytochemists
Organizer: Polish Society of Histochemists and Cytochemists
Date: 28–31 May 2025
Place: Hotel Anders, ul. Spacerowa 2, 14-133 Stare Jabłonki, Poland

MDPI journals will be exhibitors at PHTC 2025, which will be held in Olsztyn, Poland, from 28 to 31 May 2025.

The 56th Symposium, titled “From the Silver to Dream—Histochemistry is Good for Everything,” is organized by the Olsztyn Branch of the Polish Society of Histhoms and Cytochemists.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Cells;
• Biomolecules;
• JDB.

If you will be attending this conference, please feel free to start a conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference, please visit the following website: https://pthc2025.pl/.

MDPI is excited to collaborate with Toronto Metropolitan University to host an engaging Scientific Publishing Workshop aimed at empowering scholars with the knowledge and tools needed to succeed in academic publishing. This workshop will delve into the key aspects of MDPI’s open access publishing framework, offering an in-depth exploration of journal selection, the editorial workflow, and the essentials of publication ethics. Participants will also gain practical advice on improving their scientific writing and effectively addressing reviewer comments, with guidance from an experienced professional. This session promises to equip attendees with valuable skills to elevate their publishing journey.

Workshop Highlights:

• Learn How to Better Write and Structure a Research Article;
• How to Choose Where to Publish Academic Work;
• How to Respond to Reviewer Comments;
• Reasons for Rejection During Pre-Check;
• How to Navigate Through Ethics and AI Use.

Date: 15 May 2025
Time: 12:00–1:30 p.m.
Venue: Toronto Metropolitan University

Program: