Richard Lerner (1938-2021)

American chemist and immunologist, President of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, from 1986 to 2012. In 1986 he showed, at the same time as Peter Schultz, that catalytic antibodies can be obtained, and he later developed combinatorial antibody libraries.

With Carlos Barbas he prepared antibodies with aldolase activity, which catalyse the aldol addition through an enamine, like type I aldolases; this work led to aldol catalysis with proline.

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