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2011 ACS NATIONAL AWARD WINNERS Recipients are HONORED FOR CONTRIBUTIONS of major significance to chemistry
gnettes of recipients of awards administered by the American Chemical Society for 2011. C&EN will publish the vignettes of the remaining recipients in January and February issues. A profile of Ahmed H. Zewail, the 2011 Priestley Medalist, is scheduled to appear in the March 28 issue of C&EN along with his award address. Most of the award recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony that will be held on Tuesday, March 29, in conjunction with the 241st ACS national meeting in Anaheim, Calif. However, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar awardees will be honored at the 242nd ACS national meeting in Denver, Aug. 28–Sept. 1.
F. ALBERT COTTON AWARD IN SYNTHETIC INORGANIC CHEMISTRY Sponsored by the F. Albert Cotton Endowment Fund In his more than 40 years of independent research, Alan L. Balch, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Davis, has studied and synthesized myriad compounds spanning several inorganic fields, including bioinorganic, metal-cluster, and materials chemistry. “He has done it all, and he has done it well,” says Richard Eisenberg, professor of chemistry at the University of Rochester. This year’s F. Albert Cotton Award recognizes Balch Balch and his pioneering work to understand the structures and reactivities of fullerene, metal-cluster, and metalloporphyrin compounds. Balch jumped into fullerene chemistry in the early 1990s after reading that scientists
had produced the chemicals in quantities appropriate for synthesis—one of the few times he has read about science while on an airplane, he says. His lab reported some of the first structural studies of C60 and C70, including iridium complexes of C70 such as (η2–C70)Ir(CO)Cl(PPh3)2. Balch obtained the first crystal structures of endohedral fullerene complexes—ones with metal or noble gas atoms trapped inside the carbon balls. The gadolinium endohedral fullerene, GdN3@C80, is a magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent. Endohedral complexes of gadolinium prevent leakage of the metal from blood vessels, a common problem for the compounds. In Balch’s metal-cluster work, his most noted achievement was the discovery of solvoluminescence in trinuclear gold complexes. One crystalline form of this gold(I) complex produces brilliant bursts of light when washed with solvent. Understanding this material’s luminescent properties could lead to novel sensors for solvent vapors. Another long-standing area of Balch’s research involves studies of reactions between molecular oxygen and iron porphyrins. These studies have served as models for monooxygenase chemistry and produced the first identifications and characterizations of two key heme oxidation intermediates: the porphyrin-bound ferryl and peroxo-bridged porphyrin complexes. More recently, his group has examined the chemistry of the products of oxygen’s breakdown of porphyrin molecules, such as biliverdin. “Alan’s work is elegantly conceived, carefully executed, and thoughtfully interpreted,” Eisenberg says, and it is “held in the highest esteem by the entire chemistry community. His productivity continues PAULA BALCH
FOLLOWING IS THE FIRST set of vi-
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at a superbly high level, and he continues to forge new directions in his scientific inquiry.” Besides the joy of exploring new chemistries, Balch says the other satisfying aspect of his career is mentoring students: “It’s extremely rewarding to see students go off and do things that you couldn’t imagine doing yourself or you couldn’t imagine them doing when they started as students.” Balch earned a B.A. in chemistry from Cornell University in 1962, an M.A. in chemistry from Harvard University in 1965, and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Harvard in 1967. After graduating, he joined the faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1970, Balch moved upstate to UC Davis, where he has remained for 40 years. He reached full professor in 1977 and was named a distinguished professor in 1994. From 1994 to 1997, Balch served as chair of the UC Davis chemistry department. Over his career, Balch has published more than 460 journal articles. He received the National Science Foundation Award for Special Creativity in 1989, and he is a fellow of the American Chemical Society. Balch will deliver the award address before the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry.—MICHAEL TORRICE
JAMES FLACK NORRIS AWARD IN PHYSICAL ORGANIC CHEMISTRY Sponsored by the ACS Northeastern Section Striving for theories, ideas, and most of all explanations is the motivating force that has driven Weston T. Borden for his entire career, says Barry K. Carpenter, a professor and director of the Physical Organic Chemistry Centre at Cardiff University, in Wales. “Wes simply wants a better understanding of how nature works,” Carpenter remarks. “It has been very much to the benefit of the chemistry community that he has shared that understanding with us as it has unfolded.” Borden’s research has involved experiments directed toward the synthesis and study of theoretically interesting molecules as well as qualitative and quantitative theory. In his theoretical research, he uses electronic structure calculations to understand and predict the reactivity of organic and organometallic compounds. Borden has conducted research in many different
ACS AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED SERVICE IN THE ADVANCEMENT OF INORGANIC CHEMISTRY Sponsored by Strem Chemicals Charles P. Casey of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is a household name to most chemists. If scientists don’t recognize him as a past-president of the American Chemical Society or for his leadership role in the national science and engineering community, then they might know him as a lecturer, teacher of dozens of Ph.D. students, or leading researcher in organometallic chemistry. “Chuck Casey’s unique combination of outstanding service and distinguished research in inorganic Casey chemistry richly merits this award,” says Wisconsin colleague Clark R. Landis. In the lab, Casey is known for his mechanistic investigations in organometallic chemistry. His research group has contributed to the understanding of homogeneous catalysis of alkene isomerization, olefin metathesis, cyclopropanation, hydroformylation, hydrogenation, and alkene polymerization. Casey and his colleagues WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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provided the earliest well-defined models for individual steps in olefin metathesis. His group also isolated key proposed intermediates in Fischer-Tropsch chemistry and developed model compounds of intermediates in Ziegler-Natta alkene polymerizations. Above and beyond his research achievements, Casey has been a visible leader in the chemistry community. Milestones in his career include serving as chair of the ACS Wisconsin Section, chair of the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry’s Organometallic subdivision, chair of the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry, and member of the ACS Petroleum Research Fund’s advisory board. In 2004, as ACS president, Casey initiated the Academic Employment Initiative, which has broadened the process by which colleges and universities recruit faculty into the chemical sciences. He also supported division-sponsored symposia at ACS regional meetings and provided opportunities at national meetings for chemists to learn more about the emerging field of nanoscience. Casey, 68, received a B.S. degree in chemistry at St. Louis University in 1963 and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967. The following year, he joined the faculty at UW Madison, where he is now the Homer B. Adkins Emeritus Professor of Chemistry. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and served as chair of NAS’s chemistry section. Among other national roles, Casey was cochair of the National Research Council’s Chemical Sciences Roundtable and is currently chair of the chemistry section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also serves on the board of the nonprofit Council for Chemical Research. Casey has been a member of the editorial board of several ACS journals, including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Organometallics, and Organic Letters. His awards include the ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, and the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Award. PETER CUTTS PHOTOGRAPHY
at North Texas, where he is now a Distinguished University Research Professor. Borden has been the recipient of fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial, and Alexander von Humboldt foundations and from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Among his honors, he has received an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from ACS and has been named a fellow of ACS and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Borden will deliver the award address before the Division of Organic Chemistry.—GLENN HESS MARTIN SAUNDERS/YALE
areas of physical organic chemistry, but he is probably best known for his work on diradicals. The Norris Award, established in 1963 to encourage and reward outstanding contributions to physical organic chemistry, “is to me a very special award,” says Borden, the Robert A. Welch Chair of Chemistry at the University of North Texas. “I feel very honored to have my name added to the list of previous winners, which contains the names of the world’s most respected physical organic chemists of Borden the past 45 years.” Throughout his career, Borden has collaborated with many other theoreticians and experimentalists. However, Borden states, “my collaboration with my coworker, Dr. David Hrovat, has contributed the most to the success of my research program over the past quarter century.” Although Borden’s research group no longer conducts experiments, he still collaborates with other experimental groups in order to test predictions he derives from the results of calculations made by his North Texas students. “My research is curiosity-driven,” he explains. “Trying to answer the question ‘Why?’ motivates most of my group’s calculations. When we think we have arrived at the answer to a question, we try to make a prediction based on that answer, and then we try to test the prediction experimentally.” For example, first on the basis of qualitative molecular orbital theory and then on the results of ab initio calculations, Borden predicted that 1,1-difluorocyclopropanes would undergo highly stereospecific, disrotatory ring opening and that the D8h transition structure for bond shifting in cyclooctatetraene would be found to violate Hund’s rule. After Borden published those predictions, he collaborated with William R. Dolbier of the University of Florida to confirm the former and with W. Carl Lineberger of the University of Colorado to confirm the latter prediction experimentally. Borden, 67, received his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from Harvard University, where he served for five years as an assistant professor before moving to the University of Washington. After 31 years at UW, Borden accepted a position in 2004 as the first Welch Chair of Chemistry
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Sponsored by Aldrich Chemical Robert J. Cava, a professor of chemistry
at Princeton University, likes to point out that buried deep within most of our modern electronic technologies are special materials. Cell phones, televisions, and computers all employ materials with unique electronic and magnetic properties that solid-state chemists such as Cava have discovered and optimized. “These properties arise from chemistry somehow, and you have to figure out how,” Cava says. “Thankfully, the world is complicated Cava enough that that makes a lifetime job.” Cava has spent his career creating and studying solids with special magnetic and electronic characteristics, including new, innovative high-temperature superconductors, exotic magnets, and transparent electronic conductors. He is being honored for these seminal contributions to solidstate chemistry. “I think it’s a great recognition by the inorganic chemistry community of the solid-state chemistry field, and I really appreciate it,” Cava says about receiving the award. “We are different because we don’t work with molecules, but we make very complicated materials where structure and
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a Ph.D. in ceramics in 1978, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduate school, he spent a year as a National Research Council postdoctoral scholar at the National Institute of Standards & Technology. He then worked at Bell Laboratories for 16 years before leaving to join the faculty of Princeton in 1996. Cava served as the Princeton chemistry department chair from 2004 to 2010. Over his career, Cava has published some 500 journal articles and mentored about 15 graduate students. In 1998, he received the ACS Award in the Chemistry of Materials. Cava will present the award address before the Division of Inorganic Chemistry.— MICHAEL TORRICE
FRANK H. FIELD & JOE L. FRANKLIN AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MASS SPECTROMETRY Sponsored by Waters Corp. Time-of-flight mass spectrometry is today a widespread technique, but that wasn’t always the case. Many of the advantages of TOF that make it useful for biological MS can trace their roots back to Robert J. Cotter, professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences and professor of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Cotter, 67, is being honored for his many contributions to the development of TOF MS. “When Cotter began his research in this field in the late 1970s, biomedical applications of this instrument were few and commercial production had virtually ceased,” says Richard B. van Breemen, professor of medicinal chemistry at the University of Illinois, Chicago. At that time, people thought that laser desorption would only evaporate neutral molecules and that a second step was needed to ionize them. Cotter showed that desorption and ionization could be accomplished simultaneously with a single laser pulse. He proceeded to show that TOF MS makes an ideal companion for pulsed lasers because the technique analyzes ion CATHERINE FE NSE LAU
ACS AWARD IN INORGANIC CHEMISTRY
properties are related in really complex and interesting ways.” High-temperature superconductors have been a major focus of Cava’s research. His early work on the cuprate superconductor YBa2Cu3O9 has been cited more than 1,400 times in scientific literature. More recently, he and his colleagues discovered how to influence the balance between magnetism and superconductivity in lanthanide nickel borocarbides to produce novel superconductors. Creating new transparent electronic conductors is also a chemical balancing act, Cava says. His group has worked on producing materials for possible use in flatpanel displays, such as zinc-doped indium oxides, that have big enough bandgaps to allow light to pass through the solid but can also conduct current effectively. Other interesting materials that Cava has synthesized include quirky solids called frustrated magnetic systems. The crystal lattice structure of these materials prevents their atoms’ spins from settling on a single alignment when frozen to near absolute zero. Because of this spin switching, these solids retain finite entropy at absolute zero, similar to a property that Linus Pauling described about ice. “Cava has transformed the discipline of solid-state chemistry in a fundamental manner,” says Peter P. Edwards, a chemistry professor at Oxford University. “No one has made more significant and wideranging contributions to our understanding of how atoms combine to give rise to new inorganic materials with quite spectacular and breathtaking electronic and magnetic properties.” At Princeton, Cava has won several awards for teaching undergraduates. “One must also give great credit to Cava the teacher,” Edwards says, “imparting his knowledge, insights, and joy in educating the young—and sometimes the not so young!” Cava earned a B.S. and an M.S. in materials science and engineering in 1974 and Cotter OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS/PRINCETON U
Scientists of the quality of Casey “set the standards not just for their students and their competitors in research, but for all the areas in which they offer their services,” says Daryle H. Busch, a past-president of ACS and a chemistry professor at the University of Kansas. “Casey deserves recognition for raising the standards in organometallic chemistry research, in the education of graduate students in organometallic chemistry, in the service of the many organizations that serve inorganic and especially organometallic chemistry, and in the conduct of the leadership of the American Chemical Society itself.” Casey will deliver the award address before the Division of Inorganic Chemistry.—STEVE RITTER
CELIA ARNAUD
RALPH F. HIRSCHMANN AWARD IN PEPTIDE CHEMISTRY Sponsored by Merck Research Laboratories It’s easy to imagine how pursuing studies in nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy could doom a scientist to a career spent chained to a spectrometer in some cool, dark, instrument lab. But that hasn’t been the case for David J. Craik. In his quest to discover and study the cyclic peptides known as cyclotides, you’re just as likely to find Craik, 55, scouring the Australian countryside or African plains for plants as you are to find him locked up with instrumentation. “We’ve had a lot of adventures,” Craik tells C&EN of his search for cyclotides. Consider, for example, the time his lab drove through the Australian desert from Brisbane to Alice Springs, carrying all the food, water, and fuel needed for the five- Craik day journey. “It takes skills other than chemistry,” observes Craik, who is currently a Professorial Fellow at Australia’s University of Queensland. But it’s Craik’s sense of scientific adventure that’s being recognized with the 2011 Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry. “Professor Craik has made outstanding contributions to our understanding of the structure-function relationships of peptide toxins and circular peptides and proteins,” notes Paul F. Alewood, Craik’s colleague at the University of Queensland. “His multidisciplinary approach not only requires great intellect and drive but courage to learn new disciplines and employ them in smart ways.” A native of Australia, Craik earned bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from La Trobe University, in his home country. After postdoctoral stints in the U.S. and back home, he joined the faculty at Australia’s Victorian College of Pharmacy. In 1995, he moved to the University of Queensland. It was during a sabbatical at England’s Oxford University, in 1991, that Craik discovered the first cyclotide—a cyclic peptide with six cysteine residues in a knotted arrangement. The protein, named kalata B1, had originally been identified in the 1970s by Lorents Gran, a Norwegian doctor who
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isolated and identified the compound as the active component in a tea that women in the Congo drank to shorten their time in labor. “It was a complete accident that I came across this peptide,” Craik recalls. “I did the structure using NMR and we discovered the knotted disulfide arrangement and with colleagues discovered it was a head-to-tail cyclic peptide. No one had seen a cysteine knot before, and a headto-tail cyclized backbone for a peptide of that size was unprecedented.” There was some skepticism over the structure, he remembers. “It was stubbornness, I suppose, that kept me working in an area that wasn’t fashionable.” Since then, Craik has discovered many other examples of the cyclotides, and that research has dovetailed nicely with his work on the peptides known as conotoxins. By linking the N- and Ctermini of a conotoxin from cone snail venom, essentially transforming it into a cyclotide, Craik’s group has made a stable peptide with promising properties for treating chronic pain. As for the Hirschmann prize, Craik says, “I’m just really honored and delighted to receive the award.” Craik will present the award address before the ACS Division of Biological Chemistry.—BETHANY HALFORD COURTESY O F DAVID CRAIK
packets in a similar pulsed manner, van Breemen says. Much of Cotter’s work in laser desorption served as “an important stepping stone” to developments such as matrixassisted laser desorption ionization, says James A. Yergey, senior director for preclinical drug metabolism at Merck & Co. in West Point, Pa. This work provided one of the underpinnings for TOF MS as a workhorse for biological MS. Cotter constructed the first infrared laser desorption TOF mass spectrometer in 1980. In subsequent instruments, he incorporated capabilities such as time-delayed ion extraction, which improved ion focusing. In 1993, he developed the first TOF-TOF instrument by using collision-induced dissociation to fragment molecular ions. Cotter’s most significant contribution to TOF MS, van Breemen says, is the development of the curved-field reflectron. This device focuses the entire product ion mass range simultaneously. In tandem instruments, it eliminates the need to decelerate precursor ions prior to collision and to reaccelerate the product ions afterward, which allows high collision voltages to be used. His research now focuses on the development of miniaturized mass spectrometers as portable detectors for biological agents, environmental contaminants, and clinical diagnostics. He is currently developing a low-voltage, low-power ion trap for a mission to Mars. Cotter received a B.S. in chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Mass., in 1965. He received an M.S. in 1971 and a Ph.D. in 1972 in physical chemistry from Johns Hopkins, where he worked with Walter S. Koski. He did brief stints at Towson University, in Maryland, and Gettysburg College, in Pennsylvania, before returning to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as a faculty research associate in 1978. In 1981, he became assistant professor of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics. He was promoted to associate professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences in 1986 and to full professor in 1992. In 1994, he received a second appointment as professor of biophysics and biophysical chemistry. He has been director of the Middle Atlantic Mass Spectrometry Laboratory since 1987. Cotter will present the award address before the Division of Analytical Chemistry during the fall ACS national meeting.—
ACS AWARD IN INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY Sponsored by the ACS Division of Business Development & Management and the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates John A. Lowe III, who launched the pharmaceutical consulting company JL3Pharma in Stonington, Conn., in 2009 after a 30-year career with Pfizer Global Research & Development, is being honored for his role in the discovery of a treatment for schizophrenia and for advances deriving from his work with the receptor for substance P (SP), a peptide involved in the immune response and in transmission of pain signals. Born in 1951, Lowe earned a B.A. in chemistry and history from Williams College, in Massachusetts, in 1973 and a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the Universi-
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sence of many of these side effects, it represents a true advance in the treatment of this debilitating disease.” Lowe’s honors include the 2007 ACS Heroes of Chemistry award and the 2005 Northeast Regional Industrial Innovation Award from ACS for his work with Geodon. Lowe’s “unquenchable enthusiasm” for his work is readily apparent, notes California Institute of Technology chemistry professor Dennis A. Dougherty. “He displays the perfect balance of intellectual curiosity and appreciation for the practical consequences of the work.” Lowe will present the award address before the ACS Division of Business Development & Management.—SOPHIE ROVNER COU RT ESY O F JO HN LOWE
The sweetest success is often one that’s shared. Just ask Patricia Burns and Tie Hwee Ng of the Xerox Research Centre of Canada, in Mississauga, Ontario; and
COURTESY OF TIE HWEE NG
Sponsored by ACS Corporation Associates
LINDA EMBERLEY
ACS AWARD FOR TEAM INNOVATION
body has different strengths, and you need all those strengths to get the job done.” Toners are conventionally made by extruding plastic mixed with pigments and additives, and pulverizing the composite material into a fine powder. The powder is then processed to remove oversized chunks and ultrafine particles. But this approach can be inconsistent. Some additives and pigments cannot withstand the high temperatures needed to melt the plastic, and others don’t distribute evenly among the toner particles. And plastics with lower melting points don’t pulverize efficiently. The emulsion aggregation (EA) toner technology developed by the Xerox team takes a different approach. The researchers used the EA technology to grow, by a process of particle aggregation, micrometersized toner particles from nanometer-sized polymer particles. This nanotechnologybased approach allows scientists to control the size, shape, and structure of the particles, leading to improved print quality, less toner usage and waste, and lower energy printing. The process also uses about 25% less energy to manufacture toners compared with the conventional method.
Grazyna Kmiecik-Lawrynowicz and Chieh-Min Cheng
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Ng PALMER PHOTOGRAPHY
of Xerox Corp., in Webster, N.Y. This multidisciplinary team of Xerox chemists and chemical engineers developed an innovative nanotechnology-based approach to designing and manufacturing color toners for printers. Chemists Burns and Kmiecik-Lawrynowicz worked on the research and development of the technology, and chemical engineers Cheng and Ng worked on the scale-up for commercial production. “I think the most important thing about teamwork comes down to communication,” Burns says. “Every-
ROB ERT BAYLEY
ty of California, Los Angeles, in 1977. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, he joined Pfizer in 1979. By 2002, Lowe had become a senior research fellow at the company. One of his major accomplishments at Pfizer was the discovery of a compound that could block the NK1 receptor for SP. “Prior to Dr. Lowe’s discovery, only large peptidic analogs of SP itself had been Lowe shown to block the action of SP in vivo,” notes Rod MacKenzie, senior vice president and head of worldwide research at Pfizer. Because of their modest affinity for the NK1 receptor and poor oral bioavailability, those analogs had limited clinical potential, he adds. But when members of Pfizer’s new leads research team screened the company’s chemical library in the 1980s, they found a series of quinuclidines that strongly bound the NK1 receptor. By optimizing the structure, Lowe devised CP-96345, the first small, non-peptide-based molecule to effectively block SP from binding to the receptor. “Dr. Lowe’s landmark papers in Science describing CP-96345 led to widespread efforts within the pharmaceutical industry to identify other small-molecule SP antagonists,” MacKenzie says. “These efforts have confirmed an important role for SP in asthma, post-chemotherapy emesis in cancer, depression, and circadian rhythm. The efficacy of SP antagonists in central nervous system-mediated disease, previously an untapped avenue for novel therapy, led to the discovery and successful marketing of the first SP antagonist for post-chemotherapy emesis,” Merck & Co.’s Emend (aprepitant). Lowe also played a key role in the discovery of Geodon (ziprasidone) for the treatment of schizophrenia. The compound, which represented the culmination of more than 14 years of research at Pfizer, generated sales of $1 billion in 2009. “Side effects such as motor impairment, weight gain, hyperlipidemia, and hyperglycemia limit patient compliance” with many of the drugs available to treat schizophrenia, MacKenzie points out. In patients who stop taking medication, disease symptoms return, resulting in the potential for injury to self or others, he adds. “Because ziprasidone offers powerful efficacy in the ab-
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Cheng
“In the development of this environmentally friendly technology, the team was faced with significant challenges of preparing nanosized toner constituents and then controlled assembly of these constituents into micron-sized toner,” says Hadi Mahabadi, vice president and director of the Xerox Research Centre of Canada “The scale-up of the process involved the severe challenge of maintaining kinematic, dynamic, and chemical similarities across all process steps in this highly complex system. The team addressed all these challenges through superb teamwork.” Today, toners produced with the EA technology are used in a range of printing applications, from small office printers to the world’s fastest cut sheet production print engines. Mahabadi says the technology “addresses many customer needs, such as better image quality, higher number of printed pages per pound of toner, and lower energy usage for printing a page.” The project took eight years to complete, from the initial laboratory work to commercial product. Burns points out that everyone on the team was involved in every step of the project. Kmiecik-Lawrynowicz recalls donning a hard hat and overalls and working with Ng in the pilot plant. “That was the first experience I had working on the EA process in the big reactors,” she says. Burns also learned from her teammates. “When I first started, I was so narrowly focused on designing the polymer that I wasn’t thinking about the bigger picture,” she says. “The engineers taught me a lot about all the things you need to consider. It really helped broaden me and make me understand the value of a multidisciplinary team.” Cheng says working with the group allowed him to appreciate the breadth of the research happening at Xerox. And Ng says his teammates helped him think in terms of functionality and use of greener materials. Ng emphasizes that the project was a collaborative effort throughout Xerox. “We cannot forget that there are lots of people behind us doing all the hard work,” he says. The team also took pride in its diversity. Burns is a native of Canada, KmiecikLawrynowicz is from Poland, Ng is from Indonesia, and Cheng is from Taiwan. Burns served as laboratory manager of reprographic materials synthesis and characterization. She played a key role in the development of the EA technology. Burns received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Windsor and a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University
of Waterloo, both in Ontario. She joined Xerox in 1995 as a research scientist in the composite marking materials lab. Kmiecik-Lawrynowicz served as principal scientist and EA technology project manager. She pioneered research on the technology at Xerox and is known to her colleagues as the “Mother of EA.” She holds 75 U.S. patents related to the technology and
received an Imaging Science & Technology Fellowship in 2004 from the Society for Imaging Science & Technology for “her contributions in the field of chemical toners, particularly the emulsion aggregation process.” She received a B.S and an M.S., both in chemistry and chemical engineering, from Warsaw Technical University, in Poland, and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Rutgers Univer-
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sity. Kmiecik-Lawrynowicz joined the Xerox Research Centre of Canada in 1988 as an industrial research fellow. In 1996, she moved to Webster, where she is still responsible for the design and development of EA toners. Cheng served as principal engineer and area manager of EA process engineering and product delivery. His work was instrumental in providing scaled-up processes and materials-processing capabilities to enable development of EA toners, as well as key engineering solutions for their manufacture. He received a B.S. in chemical engineering from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in polymer science and engineering from Lehigh University. Cheng joined Xerox in 1995 as a technology specialist in the toner product delivery unit. Ng served as laboratory manager of scale-up engineering. He contributed important process innovations that ensured the project’s economic and technological viability and its significant environmental merits. He received a B.S. in engineering science and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Toronto. He joined Xerox in 1985 as a research engineer in the scale-up engineering lab. The award address will be presented before the ACS Division of Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering.—LINDA WANG
LETTERS
continued from page 5 and savings comes with both the need for trade-offs and a willingness to accept a shift in paradigms—particularly as our focus on service to customers and readers moves inexorably from physical ownership of content to digital services that bundle valuable features and functionality needed by active researchers. We respectfully suggest that, if continued access to previously published journal issues is important to you, the most attractive and sustainable option for all is to remain an active ACS member subscriber. Brian D. Crawford President, ACS Publications and Society Staff Liaison to the Joint BoardCouncil Committee on Publications CAVEAT EMPTOR IN THE LAB AS THE PRESIDENT and chief operating
officer of a small organic synthesis and research lab, I have found used equipment
and analytical instruments to be a way of life to preserve capital and have access to the wide variety of equipment needed in an ever-changing project environment (C&EN, Nov. 22, 2010, page 11). Unfortunately, it seems that small companies, university projects, and new ventures are underserved. Typical liquidations seem to be done in bulk bundles, and only large, used-equipment distributors can play that game. A small company does not need 20 HPLCs; it may need just one, perhaps bundled with a gas chromatograph and other lab instruments. Once the equipment hits the distributor, the price doubles and it is “held firm,” even though this very same small research company may be providing critical support or services to that drug company’s R&D efforts. So, in this market, a drug or other type of company disposing of equipment loses value on its liquidated assets, receiving about 20 cents on the dollar, while the smaller vendors who need the equipment to provide better value to their customer (at a better price) must pay a premium, about 65 cents on the dollar. I have tried to get some of our large customers to liquidate equipment to us (for mutual benefit), but those ultimately responsible seem to have a small list of contacts. It is just my perspective, but I would think the large companies disposing of equipment would be better served if their liquidators were directed to try to help or give some attention to their vendors; even at about 40 cents on the dollar, everyone wins. Perhaps if the equipment distributor markets were not protected, the price of all new and used research equipment would go down. Now how sweet would that be? Michael F. Smith Ewing, N.J.
law. When decisions of the patent courts are reviewed by the Supreme Court, three out of every four times the Federal Circuit decision is overturned. The Justice Department is now simply applying the supreme law of the land, not that of an inferior court. Congress has the power to overturn Supreme Court precedents holding that products of nature are not patentable subject matter. But Congress has never explicitly overturned the product of nature doctrine. The mere fact that PTO has not followed Supreme Court precedents and has issued thousands of invalid patents does not make it right. The “handiwork of nature” is free for all and cannot be “owned” by companies that want to “protect their investments in research and development.” The Constitution allows Congress to “promote the progress of” the useful arts by securing to inventors the exclusive right to their discoveries for limited times. Gene sequences express inheritable traits or characteristics created by nature. Those characteristics are passed to progeny by nature, not by man. Manipulating a gene sequence known to express a characteristic known in one species into the genome of another species not known to express that characteristic is an obvious solution to try when one seeks to have the characteristic in the other species. Nature expresses the characteristics, not man. This issue may well be clarified by the Supreme Court in the relatively near future. I expect the Court will report that the law is that products of nature are not patentable subject matter. John P. Sutton Grass Valley, Calif. THE ACS ELECTION I FIND IT appalling that ACS, with what I
PATENTING PRODUCTS OF NATURE “AN ABOUT-FACE on Gene Patents” incor-
rectly states that the government made a “policy shift” in holding that gene patents are barred as products of nature (C&EN, Nov. 8, 2010, page 10). The government is not making policy; rather, it is following Supreme Court precedents going back at least 125 years. “It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is” (Marbury v. Madison, 1803). The Patent & Trademark Office has been following the law as stated by the Federal Circuit since 1982, and not Supreme Court WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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consider to be one of the most intelligent and knowledgeable memberships, would have less than 20% of its members voting in the recent ACS election for president. Percentages as low as 50% in general elections in the U.S. have been a matter of concern. Surely, there are few obstacles to voting for ACS candidates, with both mail and online options available, so I would have hoped that percentages of 80% or more could be realized. As ACS members we should be ashamed at the lack of commitment of our fellow members to the election process. Nelson Marans Silver Spring, Md.
