
Dr. Peter Nemes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Chemistry at the George Washington University, Washington DC, has been named the recipient of the 2016 Arthur F. Findeis Award for Achievements by a Young Analytical Scientist. The Findeis Award is given annually by the American Chemistry Society Division of Analytical Chemistry, to recognize and encourage outstanding contributions to the fields of analytical chemistry by a young analytical scientist. The award will be presented at the 252nd ACS National Meeting to be held August 21-25, 2016 in Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Nemes obtained an MS (Summa Cum Laude) degree in 2004 from Eotvos Lorand University and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Hungary, then earned his Ph.D. in 2009 from the George Washington University under Professor Akos Vertes. He then completed postdoctoral research in bioanalytical chemistry for neurobiology in Professor Jonathan Sweedler’s laboratory at the University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign, IL, where he developed mass spectrometry instrumentation to characterize chemical neuron heterogeneity in the molluskan and mammalian central nervous systems. In 2011, Dr. Nemes assumed a Laboratory Leader position with the US Food and Drug Administration (Silver Spring, MD), where he established a mass spectrometry core facility and regulatory research program to enable the rapid detection of chemical threats to the public. Since joining the faculty at the George Washington University in 2013, Dr. Nemes’ research program is focused on understanding molecular processes that orchestrate normal cell development and response to extremal stimuli (e.g., drugs and toxins). To this end, his laboratory develops high-sensitivity mass spectrometry technologies to ask what roles metabolites and proteins play in single cells during the patterning of the vertebrate body plan and establishment of the central nervous system using the South African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) and mouse as models. To date, he has authored 30 peer-reviewed publications, 6 book chapters, and 80+ presentations. Dr. Nemes holds 4 licensed patents as co-inventor of laser ablation electrospray ionization (LAESI) mass spectrometry. In 2015, he was named a Beckman Young Investigator by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.