Annette Beck-Sickinger

In March 2015, Beck-Sickinger was at the center of a controversy related to comments made during correspondence with an internship applicant in which she stated she would not accept any male students from India.

Germany's ambassador to India wrote a letter condemning Beck-Sickinger and, stating: “Your oversimplifying and discriminating generalisation is an offence to women and men ardently committed to furthering women's empowerment in India; and is an offence to millions of law-abiding, tolerant, open-minded and hard-working Indians. Let's be clear: India is not a country of rapists,” he wrote. “I would encourage you to learn more about the diverse, dynamic and fascinating country and the many welcoming and open-minded people of India so that you could correct a simplistic image, which – in my opinion – is particularly unsuitable for a professor and teacher.”

Annette Beck-Sickinger was a member of the Board of the German Chemical Society (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, 2004-2012; Vice-President 2006-2008) and of the DFG panel „Biochemistry“ (2004-2012). Since 2017 she is member of the Board of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (gbm) and Vice-President. She was a member of the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) from 2012-2018, and has been awarded with many prices including the Leonidas Zervas Award of the European Peptide Society, the gold medal of the Max-Bergmann-Kreis, the Leipzig Science Award (2016) and the Albrecht Kossel Price of the German Chemical Society (2018). She was honoured with the membership of the Saxonian Academy of Science in 2009 and in 2012, she became an elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In 2017, she was awarded with the Saxonian Order of Merit.

Annette G. Beck-Sickinger studied chemistry (diploma in 1986) and biology (diploma in 1990) at the University of Tübingen (Germany) and received her Ph. D. under the supervision of G. Jung (Organic Chemistry, University of Tübingen). She was working as research fellow with R. A. Houghten (Scripps Clinic & Research Foundation, La Jolla, USA 1988) and T. W. Schwartz (Rigshospitalet Kopenhagen, Denmark 1992) and performed a post-doctorate with E. Carafoli (Laboratory of Biochemistry, ETH Zürich, 1990-1991). She was appointed as assistant professor of Pharmaceutical Biochemistry at ETH Zürich (1997-1999). Since October 1999, she is full professor of Biochemistry and Bioorganic Chemistry at the University of Leipzig. In 2009 she spent a sabbatical at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN) as visiting professor.

Annette Gabriele Beck-Sickinger (born 28 October 1960) is a German chemist and biologist. She has been a full professor of Biochemistry and Bioorganic Chemistry at the University of Leipzig since 1999. Her major research fields are structure-activity-relationships of peptide hormones and G protein coupled receptors and protein modification to study function and interaction. A tight connection of chemical methods, bioorganic synthesis and molecular biology tools, including cloning, receptor mutagenesis, protein expression and cell biochemistry is applied. Whereas in the first field, her interests go towards medicinal chemistry, identification of novel targets and novel therapeutic concepts e. g. in the field of cancer and obesity, the second field is related to biomaterials, novel approaches to modify proteins and concepts for improved enzyme catalysis.