The Perelman School of Medicine Presidential Professorship III
Presidential Professorships are awarded to exceptional scholars of any rank who will contribute to the diverse experiences, perspectives, and eminence of Penn faculty. They were established in 2011 to strengthen the University’s ability to recruit, retain and mentor distinguished scholars who are preeminent in their fields and have demonstrated a commitment to sustaining an inclusive and vibrant academic community.
Current Chairholder
César de la Fuente, PhD
César de la Fuente is Perelman School of Medicine Presidential Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He leads the Machine Biology Group, whose goal is to combine the power of machines and biology to help prevent, detect, and treat infectious diseases. Specifically, he pioneered the development of the first antibiotic designed by a computer with efficacy in animals, designed algorithms for antibiotic discovery, reprogrammed venoms into antimicrobials, created novel resistance-proof antimicrobial materials, and invented rapid low-cost diagnostics for COVID-19 and other infections.
Dr. de la Fuente is an NIH MIRA (Maximizing Investigators' Research Award) investigator and has received recognition and research funding from numerous other groups. He has received over 50 awards and was recognized by MIT Technology Review as one of the world’s top innovators for “digitizing evolution to make better antibiotics.”
He was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Langer Prize and has also received the ACS (American Chemical Society) Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry Award, the AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) 35 Under 35 Award, and the ACS Infectious Diseases Young Investigator Award. In 2021, he received the Thermo Fisher Award and the EMBS (Engineering in Medicine and Biology) Society Academic Early Career Achievement Award “for the pioneering development of novel antibiotics designed using principles from computation, engineering, and biology.” Most recently, Dr. de la Fuente was awarded the prestigious Princess of Girona Foundation for Scientific Research Award and the ASM (American Society for Microbiology) Award for Early Career Applied and Biotechnological Research. He also has been named a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate several times.
Dr. de la Fuente has given over 200 invited lectures, and his scientific discoveries have yielded over 110 publications, including papers in Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ACS Nano, Cell, Nature Chemical Biology, and Advanced Materials. He also holds multiple patents.