Biochemist Phillip E. Klebba selected as 2020 AAAS fellow
Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020
MANHATTAN — The American Association for the Advancement of Science — the world's largest scientific society — has chosen Phillip E. Klebba, Kansas State University distinguished professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, as one of its 2020 fellows.
Klebba is one of 489 fellows chosen this year by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS. He was selected for his distinguished contributions to the understanding of the membrane transport mechanisms of bacteria relevant to their practical applications in human and animal health.
"I'm thrilled, appreciative and gratified to think that others find our research contributions worthy of their attention," Klebba said. "In truth, this recognition is attributable to the hard work and many insightful experiments performed by members of my laboratory over the years."
Election as an AAAS fellow is a lifetime honor bestowed upon association members by their peers. The fellowship program recognizes individuals whose efforts toward advancing science applications are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.
The fellows will be announced in the AAAS News & Notes section of the Nov. 27 issue of Science. New fellows will be presented with an official certificate and pin to commemorate their election.
Klebba joins 23 current and emeritus Kansas State University faculty members who are fellows of the association.
"Dr. Klebba has a long-standing record of publications from his research," said Peter Dorhout, vice president for research. "The papers from his laboratory routinely devised new techniques, including immunological, molecular biological biochemical, and biophysical methods, that placed him at the forefront of basic biochemical research. It was a pleasure for me to recommend Phil for this recognition."
Klebba's research focuses on three areas: the development of fluorescent nanosensors for biophysical analyses of membrane transport in living cells, leading to understanding of the mechanisms of active iron transport through the cell envelopes of pathogenic bacteria, and the use of this knowledge to discover novel antibiotics against bacterial infectious disease.
Klebba came to K-State in 2012. His research and collaborative projects have garnered more than $10.5 million in continuous research funding since 1986 from organizations such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He has more than 85 publications.
For several decades he has served as a referee for funding agencies and scientific journals. He is a section editor for International Journal of Molecular Sciences; was a managing editor for Frontiers in Bioscience; and served as an editorial board member for the Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, Biomedical Research International, and Advances in Biological Chemistry.
In 1993 Klebba was a chercheur de Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, or CNRS, at Institut Pasteur in Paris, and he spent 2002 to 2003 as a Fulbright scholar at Institut Necker Enfants Malades in Paris. He remains involved with the Fulbright Scholar Program of the U.S. State Department and is a biochemistry specialist for the program's Council for Exchange of International Scholars. In 2001 he served as an international professor of the American Society for Microbiology at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. From 2011 to 2012 he was appointed as a visiting professor of physiology in the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Klebba is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Microbiology, the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Society of General Physiologists. Some of his career accolades include receiving the 1981 Evelyn Neizer Post-Doctoral Research Award from Stanford University, Phillipe Foundation International Scholar awards in 1993 and 2002, and a 2011 Burroughs-Wellcome Research Scholar Award at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Klebba obtained his bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Notre Dame; earned his doctorate in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley; and performed postdoctoral research at Stanford University and at the University of California, Berkeley.
