Dr. Bert Fraser-Reid, Ph.D.
James B. Duke Professor and Chemist

Distinguished Research Chemist and James B. Duke Professor (rec'd by only 43 out of 1400 professors) has written over 350 publications. He has lectured at universities, academies, companies, and prestigious institutions in 47 countries. He synthesized insect pheromones from glucose, and shown that many synthetic petroleum based products can be made from sugars. His lab has discovered reactions to make complex sugars, known as oligosaccharides, which are among nature's most important biological regulators, particularly for the body’s immune system. Ten years ago he retired from Duke and founded a private non-profit research Institute, with a goal to develop carbohydrate-based therapeutic agents for Third World infectious diseases, under the sponsorship of the World Health Organization. In May, 2000, Dr. Fraser-Reid was chosen as the only US member of a Consortium of six international interdisciplinary scientists, funded by the prestigious "Human Sciences Frontier Programme Organization" of Europe, to work towards a carbohydrate-based anti-malaria vaccine. His Institute accomplished the first syntheses of antigenic oligosaccharides associated with malaria and tuberculosis. Dr. Fraser-Reid has won the world’s premiere award in Carbohydrate Chemistry, also national chemistry awards from societies in USA, Canada, Japan, the Alexander von Humboldt Senior scientist Award from Germany.