Dr. Peter ‘t Hart is a group leader at the Chemical Genomics Centre at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund. In his research he uses macrocyclic peptides to inhibit challenging targets such as protein-protein interaction with a current focus on protein-RNA interactions. His team uses both structure-based design as well as genetically encoded library screening techniques to identify such inhibitors and various biochemical and cellular techniques to investigate their effects. Furthermore, the group also works on developing new late-stage functionalization techniques for the introduction of unnatural amino acids during solid phase peptide synthesis as well as methods to improve peptide cell permeability.

He got his bachelor’s degree from the Rotterdam University of Applied Science in chemistry and his Master’s degree from Utrecht University in Pharmacy. For his PhD he stayed at Utrecht University in the Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology group with Prof. Dr. Nathaniel Martin working the identification of antibiotic bicyclic peptides using phage display. Then he moved to the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology for a postdoctoral position as a Humboldt Research Fellow in the group of Prof. Dr. Herbert Waldmann. Here he worked on the structure-based design of cyclic peptide inhibitors of epigenetic regulator proteins.