Biography

Dr. Ling Peng is currently a research director at the French National Scientific Research Center (CNRS) and working in the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Nanoscience de Marseille (CINaM), France. After obtaining her undergraduate degree in polymer chemistry from Nanjing University in China, she carried out her PhD program in organic synthesis under the supervision of Prof Albert Eschenmoser at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), Switzerland. She then moved to the Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg in France to join Prof Maurice Goeldner’s group for a post-doctoral research position in pharmacy. In 1997, she was recruited as a research scientist by the CNRS, before being promoted to research director in 2008, then 1st class Research Director in 2015 and exceptional class Research Director in 2023.
Dr. PENG has been working actively at the interface of chemistry and biology, in particular developing functional dendrimers for biomedical applications, molecular probes for exploring biological events and nucleoside analogues for drug discovery. She has established bio-inspired, structurally flexible dendrimers for nucleic acid delivery. Dr Peng has inaugurated and pioneered the concept of non-covalently constructing supramolecular dendrimers by self-assembly of small amphiphilic dendrimer building units for biomedical applications. Her team has created various self-assembling supramolecular dendrimers of different sizes, shapes and properties for specific biomedical applications, such as the delivery of anticancer drugs and nucleic acid therapeutics for cancer treatment, gene therapy and immunotherapy, and imaging agents for diagnosis. For the great and innovative contributions in the use of dendrimers in cancer therapy and imaging, her team has been selected and supported by the largest French cancer foundation “La Ligue contre le Cancer” for priority funding since 2016.
Dr. Peng is the Distinguished Member of the French Chemical Society. Based on her highly inspiring and outstanding research, she was awarded the Dr and Mme Henri Labbé prize from the French Academy of Sciences in 2017, the Grand Prize of the French Chemical Society SUD PACA and the André Collet Prize of Supramolecular Chemistry by the French Chemical Society in 2024.