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2012 ACS NATIONAL AWARD WINNERS Recipients are HONORED FOR CONTRIBUTIONS of major significance to chemistry EDITED BY SOPHIE L. ROVNER
FOLLOWING IS THE SIXTH set of
v ignettes of recipients of awards administered by the American Chemical Society for 2012. C&EN will publish the vignettes of the remaining recipients in subsequent February issues. A profile of Robert S. Langer, the 2012 Priestley Medalist, is scheduled to appear in the March 26 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 27, in conjunction with the spring ACS national meeting in San Diego. However, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar awardees will be honored at the fall ACS national meeting in Philadelphia, Aug. 19–23.
FRANCIS P. GARVANJOHN M. OLIN MEDAL Sponsored by the Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal Endowment the spirit of the Garvan-Olin Medal, which recognizes distinguished service to chemistry by women chemists. Clark, who is Regents Professor of Chemistry at Washington State University (WSU), Pullman, “is an outstanding leader in nuclear and radiochemistry, and her achievements to promote and increase the participation of women in science are truly impressive,” says Heino Nitsche, a chemistry professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “I Clark could not think of a more deserving person for this award.” Clark, 50, has garnered international recognition for her work on the environmental chemistry of actinides, such as
BE N C LARK
Sue B. Clark’s colleagues say she embodies
uranium and plutonium, and for the development of analytical methods to measure these radioactive elements in environmental samples. Her work has had applications in radioactive waste management, nuclear safeguards, and nuclear forensics. In July 2011, President Barack Obama appointed Clark to the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, which advises Congress and the secretary of energy on the technical aspects of the management and disposal of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. While Clark is making a difference around the world, her colleagues say she has made an impact on a more personal level. “She has been a mentor, role model, and advocate for women in science,” says Darleane C. Hoffman, an expert in nuclear chemistry who is a professor at UC Berkeley and faculty senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Clark has “worked tirelessly to encourage women she met at American Chemical Society meetings, national laboratories, and elsewhere to apply for vacant positions at WSU,” Hoffman adds. “The resultant increase in the number of women in the applicant pool translated into more women hired into faculty positions.” “Encouraging women and minorities to seek academic opportunities and helping them to overcome the barriers are responsibilities of all chemists,” Clark says. “I am a firm believer that changing the face of the academic faculty will eventually balance the demographics of our discipline.” Clark joined WSU Pullman as an assistant professor of chemistry in 1996. She received tenure in 2000 and served as chair
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of the chemistry department from 2004 to 2007. She has also served as interim dean of the College of Sciences and interim vice chancellor for academic affairs at WSU’s Tri-Cities campus. In 2011, Clark was promoted to the university’s highest faculty rank of Regents Professor. Clark earned a B.S. degree in chemistry from Lander College, in Greenwood, S.C., in 1984, and a Ph.D. in inorganic and radiochemistry from Florida State University, Tallahassee, in 1989. Later that year, she started her career as a senior scientist in the interim waste technology division of Westinghouse Savannah River Laboratory. From 1992 to 1996, she was a research ecologist at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. ACS named Clark a fellow in 2010 in recognition of her contributions to science and her service to the society. From 2001 to 2006, Clark directed the ACS Division of Nuclear Chemistry & Technology’s Summer School in Nuclear & Radiochemistry, a six-week program for undergraduate students sponsored by the division and funded by the Department of Energy. Clark will present the award address before the ACS Division of Nuclear Chemistry & Technology.—LINDA WANG
E. BRIGHT WILSON AWARD IN SPECTROSCOPY Sponsored by the ACS Division of Physical Chemistry If every chemist has a favorite molecule, it might be natural to assume that acetylene is the closest to Robert W. Field’s heart. Field, 67, has spent more than three decades studying this four-atom molecule’s behavior in the gas phase. Over the course of his long career at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Field has devised a stable of laser-based spectroscopic methods that have made it possible to extract information on the dynamics of acetylene and other small molecules. “But you never forget your first love,” Field says, referring to the two-atom molecules on which he cut his teeth as a graduate student at Harvard University. Working under the guidance of William Klemperer, Field collected all of the spectroscopic information he could about the valence electronic states of carbon monoxide, one of many molecules with broken, or “perturbed,” spectral patterns. “Field did not
ERNEST GUENTHER AWARD IN THE CHEMISTRY OF NATURAL PRODUCTS Sponsored by Givaudan University of Montreal professor Stephen Hanessian “is the preeminent synthetic organic chemist in Canada, and his impact on the development and promotion of the pharmaceutical industry in Canada has been enormous,” according to his departmental colleague James D. Wuest. This award in the chemistry of natural products honors Hanessian’s “unique vision and approach to organic synthesis in general, and natural products in particular, in which creativity, diversity, innovation, and practicality are combined,” Wuest says. Hanessian Hanessian credits his success to his ability to visualize bondforming processes as well as the relationships between molecules. “Sometimes a painting, a certain shape, or hearing a word can lead to a chemical idea,” he says. One source was Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam,” in which the extended arms of God and Adam almost touch. That image inspired Hanessian to link two weak enzyme inhibitors to create a more potent herbicide. He describes himself as “a ‘synthephile’
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who is excited by the exhilaration of discovery and how an idea jotted down on the back of an envelope or an airline boarding pass can be rendered to practice.” Over the years, Hanessian has “demonstrated his prowess in synthesis and molecular design by a long series of impressive achievements in the chemistry of natural products,” Wuest says. “A partial list of total syntheses accomplished during the last 35 years includes such challenging targets as avermectin B1a, ionomycin, dihydromevinolin, reserpine, bafilomycin A1, and pactamycin.” The applications of Hanessian’s work include potential inhibitors of thrombin (a clotting enzyme associated with stroke), an antihypertensive drug, a diabetes drug, and fungicides. Furthermore, “the high profile of his science worldwide has made his laboratory a superb training center, sought out by researchers from all parts of the world,” Wuest notes. “As a teacher and mentor, he has trained nearly 300 young scientists who now pursue industrial and academic careers worldwide. Many have become leaders in their fields. This is a legacy that has no equal in Canada and is a tribute to an exceptional scientist.” Hanessian earned a Ph.D. at Ohio State University with Melville L. Wolfrom in 1960 and then investigated natural product and medicinal chemistry at Parke-Davis & Co., in Ann Arbor, Mich., until 1968. He joined the University of Montreal faculty as an associate professor the following year and was promoted to full professor in 1970. He holds the Isis Pharmaceuticals Research Chair. Since 2006, he has also served as a professor in the chemistry, pharmaceutical sciences, and pharmacology departments at the University of California, Irvine, where he is director of a newly established graduate program in medicinal chemistry. Hanessian, who at 76 has more than 500 publications and 42 patents to his name, consults for the pharmaceutical, biotech, and agrochemical industries in North America, Europe, and China. His many awards include the Palladium Medal of the Chemical Institute of Canada in 1988 and an Arthur C. Cope Scholar COU RTESY OF STEPHEN HANESSIAN
Society’s H. P. Broida, E. K. Plyler, and A. L. Schawlow Prizes as well as the Optical Society of America’s Ellis Lippincott and W. F. Meggers Awards. He and Kinsey shared an ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award with their graduate student Yongqin Chen in 1990. Field is also a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Field will present the award address before the ACS Division of Physical Chemistry.—AMANDA YARNELL PAT R ICK G IL LO O LY/M IT
invent spectral perturbations, but he surely understood their importance,” Klemperer says. Field eventually showed that spectral perturbation data similar to what he’d collected for CO could be used to provide a global description of intramolecular dynamics. Later, during his postdoc at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Field used perturbations, ligand field theory, and newly available tunable lasers to Field characterize the electronic structure of alkaline earth monoxides such as CaO and alkaline earth monohalides such as CaF. Field continued to probe the structure and dynamics of these and other diatomics after starting his own lab at MIT in 1974. Soon enough, however, he started to get interested in more complex molecules. “While there is great enjoyment in the detailed understanding of diatomic molecules,” Klemperer notes, Field realized that “it is the spectra and dynamics of polyatomic molecules that predominate the spectroscopic frontier.” The move from molecules with two atoms to those with three or four comes with a dramatic increase in the complexity of spectra. Undeterred, Field developed a new technique—stimulated emission pumping—with the help of his MIT colleague James L. Kinsey, who is now at Rice University. In SEP, tunable lasers excite molecules to targeted vibrational levels with geometric structure far from that of their vibrational ground state. Acetylene soon became SEP’s poster child. Field used the technique to examine, among other things, how bending one CCH bond in acetylene (HC≡CH) provides a map of its isomerization path toward highly unstable vinylidene (H2C═C:). Today, SEP “has grown to represent a truly cornerstone tool of modern molecular spectroscopy,” says spectroscopist David J. Nesbitt of JILA at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “I would have never dreamed I would still be working on acetylene 30 years later,” says Field, who notes that there’s still a place in his heart—and his lab—for diatomics. Field, who earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Amherst College, previously won the American Physical
ACS AWANEWS R DS
Sponsored by Dow Corning The year 2011 was a bittersweet one for Mitsuo Kira. On the one hand, he learned in August that ACS was honoring him with the Frederic Stanley Kipping Award. But a few months earlier, in March, the department of chemistry at Sendai’s Tohoku University, where he is an emeritus professor, was rocked by the magnitude 9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake. The earthquake, he tells C&EN, caused “terrible” damage inside the university’s main chemistry building. It took several months to rehabilitate Tohoku’s laboratories. “I am hoping that winning this award will encourage faculty members and students to continue the renovation, if only a little,” he tells C&EN. The labs are still under restoration and development, he adds. Two of the most impressive achievements of Kira’s research career are the synthesis, isolation, and characterization of the first trisilaallene in 2003—later extended to the synthesis of trigermaal- Kira lene—and the synthesis of the first stable dialkylsilylene in 1999, says Yitzhak Apeloig, a professor of chemistry at Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa. Apeloig himself was the 2010 recipient of the Kipping Award, which is given every two years. Kira’s trisilaallene paper in Nature received much attention. At the end of 2003, C&EN listed it as one of the inorganic chemistry highlights of the year (C&EN, Dec. 22, 2003, page 45). The structure of trisilaallene is dif-
FRANÇOIS TREMBLAY
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ACS AWARD IN ORGANOMETALLIC CHEMISTRY Sponsored by Dow Chemical Co. Foundation In a high school in Ireland many years ago, a student witnessed his first chemical reaction—a deep blue substance was heated, then turned white, only to have its color return when the teacher added water to it. Next, the teacher replaced the water with ammonia, turning the substance a deeper blue. The teacher explained the crystal field theory behind the behavior of the substance, which was used to combat potato blight, and that lesson triggered the student’s interest in chemistry. The substance was copper(II) sulfate, also known as bluestone, and the student was Philip P. Power, now 58, whose fascination with such reactions would lead to his winning this award. “I knew after I left high school that I wanted to study chemistry in university,” Power tells C&EN. “That ambition never wavered.” As an undergraduate, Power began research in an organometallic chemistry laboratory under professor David J. Cardin at Trinity College Dublin, where he became familiar with the laboratory procedures associated with handling airsensitive molecules. He later moved to the University of Sussex, in England, to work with inorganic chemist Michael F. Lappert, whom he had met at an international conference on coordination chemistry in Dublin in 1973. Power was fascinated by the conference, and it helped further his interest in the field. “You got to see and hear all the leading lights in coordination chemistry at that time,” he says. While studying for his Ph.D., Power met Harold Goldwhite, who at the time was a professor at California State University, Los Angeles. Goldwhite introduced Power to phosphorus chemistry. Power received his doctorate in organometallic chemistry in 1977 and spent some time doing postdoctoral research with Goldwhite in 1978. Power went on to complete postdoctoral studies in inorganic chemistry at Stanford University under Richard H. Holm. In 1981, Power became a professor at the COURTESY OF PHIL IP P OWER
FREDERIC STANLEY KIPPING AWARD IN SILICON CHEMISTRY
ferent from that of carbon allenes, Kira explains. “The Si–Si–Si skeleton is not linear but significantly bent, and hence, the hybridization of the central silicon should not be sp. The skeleton is fluxional even in the solid state at very low temperatures,” in contrast to the rigid linear framework of carbon allenes. Kira and his research group’s discoveries have both stimulated further development of synthetic research in the field and encouraged experimental and theoretical studies to understand the bonding and structural differences between unsaturated compounds of carbon and of heavier group-14 elements. Born in 1943, Kira studied synthetic chemistry at Kyoto University until he obtained a master of engineering in 1970. He then became an instructor at Tohoku and completed his D.Sc. there in 1974. Kira, who spent all of his career Power at Tohoku, was promoted to full professor in 1995. He became an emeritus professor when he formally retired from teaching in 2007. In retirement, Kira has been far from inactive. He is a guest professor at Tohoku and at Hangzhou Normal University, in China, a school that hosts the Key Laboratory of Organosilicon Chemistry & Material Technology of China’s Ministry of Education. This summer, he presented a plenary lecture in Hamilton, Canada, at the 16th International Symposium on Silicon Chemistry. This past December, he spent a week in India as a plenary lecturer at a symposium on inorganic chemistry. An author on 312 published papers, Kira has collected many prizes over the years. They include the Chemical Society of Japan Award, the Wacker Silicone Award, the Japanese Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon, and the Award of the Society of Silicon Chemistry, in Japan. Kira will present the award address at the U.S. Silicon Symposium.—JEANCOURTESY OF MITSUO KIRA
Award from the American Chemical Society in 1996. Also in 1996, Hanessian received the Canada Gold Medal for Science & Engineering, the nation’s foremost award in science. In 1998, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, the highest national award for a citizen. Hanessian will present the award address before the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry.—SOPHIE ROVNER
NATIONAL FRESENIUS AWARD Sponsored by Phi Lambda Upsilon, the National Chemistry Honor Society A lot can happen in a decade. Take, for example, this year’s National Fresenius Award winner, Raymond E. Schaak, a professor of chemistry at Pennsylvania State University. Since 2001, he’s gone from a newly minted Ph.D. to an accomplished researcher. “If one did not know when professor Schaak received his Ph.D., or the dates of his publications, one might assume that the person was midcareer—perhaps having been independent 20 years” on the basis of his impressive list of publications in top-notch journals, says University of Alberta chemistry professor Jillian M. Buriak. “To reach this number at professor Schaak’s age is in- Schaak
credible and is indicative of a highly creative and successful scientist who clearly can motivate his group to do top-level research.” Schaak, who is 36, received a B.S. degree in chemistry from Lebanon Valley College in 1998. He earned a Ph.D. with Thomas E. Mallouk at Penn State in just three years. After a postdoc at Princeton University, he joined the Texas A&M University faculty in 2003. He moved to Penn State in 2007. Research in the Schaak lab focuses on nanoparticle synthesis. He has shown that materials typically prepared through hightemperature sintering or melting can be synthesized at much lower temperatures by sequentially applying simple chemical reactions to nanoscopic templates. The technique, which he calls “metallurgy in a beaker,” exploits the reactivity and small size of nanoscale solids to sidestep diffusion limitations that are present in larger scale systems. This method is used to create and discover new materials for applications in catalysis, energy, optics, electronics, and magnetism. But for Schaak, his work is not about any one accomplishment; it’s about the approach his group uses to tackle research problems. “Our most significant accomplishments are when we discover something new that we did not expect but then are able to back up and understand the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ behind the discovery,” Schaak says. This new knowledge can then be used “to predictably find something else that is new.” “Ray is one of the rising stars of inorganic chemistry,” says Barbara J. Garrison, head of Penn State’s chemistry department. “Rather than simply making solids and nanocrystals like many others, Ray sets out to answer how and why,” she notes, adding that “extrapolating forward, we can expect truly great things from him in the future.” “While there are a large number of younger—and older—scientists who are working on nanoparticle synthesis, Ray has stood out,” echoes Francis J. DiSalvo, a Cornell University chemistry professor. “He has followed a different path than most, who make endless variations on synthesizing simple materials such as CdS or a few oxides. His development of new methods as well JANE LL SC HAAK
University of California, Davis, where he began to focus on low-coordinate transitionmetal complexes and synthesized many of the first examples of such complexes. Power has contributed greatly to the knowledge of group-14 and -15 elements and has been influential in furthering understanding of the bonding properties of heavy main-group elements. His team has focused on multiple bonds between group-14 elements, using bulky ligands to make the compounds more stable. In 2005, Power published a paper in Science detailing quintuple bonding between two chromium atoms. Also in 2005, Power and his group reacted hydrogen gas and main-group molecules at standard temperature and pressure—a feat that was considered impossible before. He later produced the first example of a reversible ethylene-maingroup-element complex by reacting ethylene with distannynes, which are acetylene analogs containing tin. He currently lives in Davis, Calif., with his wife, Mary. He has two children from a previous marriage. Power occasionally goes sailing and is also an avid pilot who tries to fly as often as he can. Power will present the award address before the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry.—NADER HEIDARI
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as exploring new classes of materials will have a large impact in the field of materials chemistry.” Schaak is an associate editor of ACS Nano and is on the editorial advisory board of the Journal of Solid State Chemistry. He recently won a Research Corporation for Science Advancement Scialog Award for Solar Energy Conversion (2010–13) and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2007–12). With more than 80 publications to his credit, Schaak has trained nearly 15 Ph.D. and master’s students and more than 25 undergraduates. Schaak will present the award address before the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry.—SUSAN MORRISSEY
RONALD BRESLOW AWARD FOR ACHIEVEMENT IN BIOMIMETIC CHEMISTRY Sponsored by the Ronald Breslow Award Endowment It takes a discerning eye to select fundamental challenges in biology that would benefit from a chemist’s point of view. Throughout nearly 25 years in Yale University’s chemistry department, Alanna Schepartz has repeatedly accomplished this feat through an adroit combination of chemistry, creativity, and intuition. “I have always preferred to work in areas where very little is known and there’s a lot of room for discovery,” she says. For research that has elucidated the principles of molecular recognition that control protein-DNA and protein-protein interactions, Schepartz, the Milton Harris ’29 Ph.D. Professor of Chemistry and professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale, receives this year’s Ronald Breslow Award. Schepartz, 50, is perhaps best known for her development in 2007 of β-peptide bundles as protein mimics—the first nonprotein oligomers that were shown to look and act like natural proteins. She discovered a family of β-peptides that fold and assemble into octamers that contain hydrophobic cores, undergo cooperative folding transitions, and are more thermally stable than many natural proteins. “This work is exceptionally significant,” comments William L. Jorgensen, a chemistry professor at Yale, “as it demonstrates that abiological polymers can assemble in
AWA R DS/MEETINGS
control binding specificity. Later research in her lab showed that bZIP proteins use this strategy to shape their binding sites for specific DNA targets. Her lab then showed that specificity can occur via a different mechanism: A bend in DNA predisposes it to bind to some proteins but not others. Her team also demonstrated that protein-protein interactions can alter the specificity of protein-DNA interactions. For more than a decade, Schepartz has also worked on what she calls miniature proteins, a family of Schepartz polypeptides each with 36 amino acids, whose stability resembles that of proteins. The miniature proteins can selectively bind proteins and inhibit
protein-protein interactions. Their high affinity and specificity, along with their ability to permeate cells, make miniature proteins “uniquely suited as intracellular biological therapeutics,” according to Jorgensen. Schepartz will continue to look for open areas of study, changing her focus every three or four years, she says. “It’s all linked,” she comments. “The focus may shift, but most everything relates in some way to the biological ramifications of interactions between and among proteins and how these interactions can be engineered and exploited.” Schepartz will present the award address before the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry.—LILA GUTERMAN
MID-ATLANTIC REGIONAL MEETING CALL FOR PAPERS
Advance registration for MARM 2012 is available through May 7. Regular registration will continue through the last day of the meeting. Online registration and a list of fees can be found on the “registration” tab at marmacs.org/2012.
& Grow Using Social Media. J. Maclachlan Marketing & Technical Sales for Startup & Growing Businesses. D. Jarvis, dave.
The Maryland Section invites submission of abstracts for the 43rd Mid-Atlantic Regional Meeting (MARM 2012) of the American Chemical Society. The meeting will be held at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), on May 31 through June 2. The meeting’s technical program will include symposia on topics such as the chemistry of renewable energy, bioanalytical chemistry, carbohydrate and medicinal chemistry, and computational and structural biochemistry. Daniel G. Nocera, recipient of the Maryland Section’s 2012 Remsen Award and professor of energy and of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will present a plenary lecture on June 1. The meeting will also feature poster sessions and workshops on a variety of topics as well as a vendor exhibition. Educational programming is planned for high school teachers and those in higher education, and the UMBC student member group will host a number of events for undergraduates. Information on symposia, workshops, social events, lodging, and travel can be found at marmacs.org/2012. Abstracts may be submitted via the meeting website through April 15.
SMALL CHEMICAL BUSINESSES FALL NATIONAL MEETING SYMPOSIA The ACS Member Communities department inadvertently omitted the Division of Small Chemical Businesses symposia from the call for papers for the fall 2012 ACS national meeting in Philadelphia (C&EN, Jan. 23, page 36). Small Chemical Businesses Program Chair: J. E. Sabol, Chemical
Consultant, P.O. Box 085198, Racine, WI 53408-5198, (262) 498-8005,
[email protected] Abstracts due March 19. Best Practices for Entrepreneurs. Chemical Entrepreneurs Poster Session. J. Maclachlan,
[email protected] Entrepreneurship: Drug Discovery Innovation at Start-up, Small & Medium-Sized Biotechnology Companies (Cosponsored with COMP, MEDI, and ORGN). A. Reitz,
[email protected] How Small Businesses Increase Sales
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R ICHAR D M OSSE
water into discrete, stable, well-defined quaternary structures possessing the fundamental energetic signature of proteins in nature, and epitomizes the goals of biomimetic chemistry.” Samuel J. Danishefsky, chair and director of the Laboratory for Bioorganic Chemistry at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and professor of chemistry at Columbia University, adds, “This is, indeed, a landmark accomplishment which is likely to spark a school of research.” Schepartz’ earlier work also garnered attention. In the 1990s, she used peptide models to study how DNA-binding proteins achieve sequence specificity. First, her group used transition-metal complexes to systematically alter the relative orientation of two short peptides from the DNA-binding region of GCN4, a ubiquitous member of the basic region leucine zipper (bZIP) family of transcription factors. This work showed that peptide orientation could
[email protected] Terahertz Spectroscopy Moves from the Laboratory to the Commercial Sector. A. Rahman,
[email protected] True Stories of Success from Chemical Entrepreneurs. P. McCarthy,
[email protected] What You Need To Know about the New U.S. Patent Laws (Cosponsored with CINF).J.Bergman,
[email protected].
ACS RUBBER DIVISION TECHNICAL MEETING The American Chemical Society Rubber Division will hold its 181st Technical Meeting & Educational Symposium on April 22–25 at the Crowne Plaza Riverwalk in San Antonio. Advance registration will begin on Feb. 15 and end on March 30. Technical sessions will cover heat and fluid resistance in chemical processing applications, tire testing, nanocomposites, vibration isolation and testing, and other topics. Additional details about the technical sessions, courses, and hotel accommodations can be found at www.rubber.org/181technical-meeting. ▪
