Editorial pubs.acs.org/jnp
Special Issue in Honor of Professor Phil Crews natural products chemistry. Following his first independent publication1 in this area (“Cartilagineal - unusual monoterpene aldehyde from marine alga”), his group extended its interest in marine natural products to include marine sponges. With his typical flair and enthusiasm, Phil quickly built a strong program in this area, mounting over 60 international field expeditions and building an extensive repository of sponges from across the globe. Phil, who has been known for creative research financing and a firm belief in the adage “where there is a will, there is a way”, was able to accomplish this by launching a forerunner of today’s “ecotourism” enterprises. That is to say, during the early years of his then lab, Phil partially funded several of his research expeditions with the help of voluntary participants who (we are told) gladly paid to work long hours on the scientific mission of collecting and processing marine organisms. Soon after, Phil’s expeditions became legendary for their scope and ambition, which attracted the lifelong collaborative interests of many of his future scientific partners including Professors Fritz Schmitz, William Gerwick, and David Sherman. These multiweek expeditions to remote parts of the Solomon and Bismarck seas and other remote locales struck a good balance between work (e.g., scuba diving, chemistry, and molecular biology during the day) and educational diversions (e.g., at night, participants took turns presenting seminars, during which simultaneous wine tasting events took place). Phil’s ability to successfully manage the transport of so many cases of wine and scientific gear to so many far-off tropical harbors is just one of the many stories that stand in testament to his inseparable passion for science and life. As an enduring hallmark of his research career, Phil built numerous collaborations with colleagues in the United States and overseas. This culminated in 1990, when he and several of his esteemed colleagues received a prestigious National Cooperative Drug Discovery Group (NCDDG) award. The U.S. National Cancer Institute initiated this innovative program in order to bring together teams of experts from academia, industry, and government to exploit scientific and technological advances in natural products, cancer biology, and related fields through multidisciplinary research. Through his remarkable efforts, Phil was able to serve as a principal investigator in this program for 20 years. The progress of this collaborative effort was reported in a review published in 2004.2 Highlights included the discovery of the bengamides and psammaplins, which led to the development of two compounds, LAF-389 and NVP-LAQ824, respectively, both of which advanced to phase I cancer clinical trials. Work on the bengamides continues to this day, and a review article written by Phil and colleagues can be found in this issue of the Journal. This paper was selected by the ACS as an “Editor’s Choice” and published as an open access article for everyone to enjoy. In a separate highly productive collaboration, Phil has worked with Dr. Fred Valeriote of the Josephine Ford Cancer Center in Detroit, jointly publishing 35
I
t is with tremendous pleasure and great respect that we as Guest Editors bring to you this special issue of the Journal of Natural Products dedicated to Professor Phil Crews, of the University of California, Santa Cruz. With this unique collection of contributed papers, we honor a man who has influenced the lives of so many people throughout the natural products world. Speaking for those of us who have had the good fortune to have crossed paths with Phil both in life and in the laboratory, we are excited to present this outstanding assemblage of scientific reports that reflect the diverse interest and inquisitive scientific spirit of Phil. Phil spent part of his early life in the San Francisco Bay area town of Palo Alto, California, which has had a long history as the birthplace or home to many of America’s most renowned business leaders, artists, entrepreneurs, and entertainers. This makes it all the more incredible that out of all the well-known people with whom Phil could have rubbed shoulders during his youth, he was fated to attend high school with another future leader of the marine natural products world, Professor William Fenical. After obtaining his B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Phil crossed the country to Princeton to postdoc with the renowned stereochemist Kurt Mislow. Following his brief departure from the “Golden State”, Phil returned to California in 1970 to launch his independent career. Phil has spent the entirety of his auspicious career at the University of California, Santa Cruz, which at the time of his initial recruitment was still a very young institution, having been a part of the University of California system for only five years. Phil was fortunate to have the opportunity to help shape the future path of the fledgling Chemistry Department and he was able to successfully lead efforts toward the acquisition of several pieces of major instrumentation including the University’s first high-field NMR instrument and several types of mass spectrometry hardware. Using these new resources, he quickly developed a vigorous research program in the area of marine © 2017 American Chemical Society and American Society of Pharmacognosy
Special Issue: Special Issue in Honor of Phil Crews Published: March 24, 2017 579
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.7b00161 J. Nat. Prod. 2017, 80, 579−581
Journal of Natural Products
Editorial
aspects of organic structure analysis and is famous for its challenging problems that have vexed even seasoned faculty! Stemming from his encyclopedic knowledge of organic structure investigation, Phil has developed and shared many important insights into the challenges of organic structure investigation including the axiomatic “Crews rule”, which states that if a molecule’s ratio of hydrogens to carbons is
