Giuseppe Melacini obtained his BSc from the University of Milan in 1992 under the supervision of Professors Mario Farina, Lucia Zetta and Henriette Molinari, and his PhD in biophysical chemistry from the University of Milan in 1996 with external research at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) working with Professor Murray Goodman. He then joined the laboratory of Robert Kaptein and Rolf Boelens at the University of Utrecht as an EU PDF to return to UCSD as Lecturer. In 2003, he moved to McMaster University and was promoted to professor in 2014. He has served as Associate Chair of Graduate Studies in Chemistry and since 2019 as Director of the Chemical Biology Graduate Program. He has been awarded the Premier Research Excellence Award and the Alzheimer Society of Canada Young Investigator Award in 2005, the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada New Investigator Award and the Maureen Andrew Award in 2006, the CIHR Maud Menten Finalist Prize in 2007, the McMaster Student Union Teaching Award for Faculty of Science in 2012, an NSERC Discovery Accelerator Supplement in 2014, and the HSGSF Excellence in Graduate Student Supervision Award in 2019. Research in the Melacini laboratory focuses on the molecular pharmacology of allosteric modulators and amyloid inhibitors. Using NMR spectroscopy integrated with other biophysical and biochemical assays, the Melacini group has elucidated the mechanism of inhibition for several cyclic nucleotide-dependent signaling proteins and amyloidogenic peptides linked to cancer and neurodegenerative disorders, respectively. 

The Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Lectureship Award (formerly the Teva Canada Limited Biological and Medicinal Chemistry (BMC) Lectureship Award) is presented to a scientist who has made a distinguished contribution to the field of biological or medicinal chemistry within the past five years of the initial nomination deadline date while working in Canada.