We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2019 Young Investigator Award, sponsored by MDPI and Molecules, is Dr Carles Galdeano.

Dr Carles Galdeano is currently a Serra Hunter Professor at the University of Barcelona. His current main project is aimed at the identification and characterization of chemical probes to validate specific and medically relevant E3 ligases that can be also employed for PROTAC construction. He is also involved in several drug discovery programs to find new molecules for the treatment of cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease. Dr Galdeano has led several competitive projects (e.g., CaixaImpulse) and has been awarded with competitive fellowships at national and international levels (e.g., EMBO, Marie Curie, and Beatriu de Pinós). The scientific merits achieved by Dr Galdeano during his research career so far have also been recognized with numerous awards (e.g., Extraordinary Doctorate Award of the University of Barcelona and the Young Medicinal Chemist 2015 Prize in Spain). Besides an excellent number of publications (23 articles with more than 1000 citations, most of them in Q1 journals, and 4 patents among other outputs), Dr Galdeano boasts an impressive experience in technology transfer.

As the awardee, Dr Galdeano will receive an honorarium of 2000 CHF.

We would like to thank all the applicants from various fields of study for their participation, and all the Award Committee members for their evaluation of the abundant excellent applications.

Dr. Derek J. McPhee
Editor-in-Chief, Molecules