ACS NEWS NATIONAL AWARDS
2018 Cope and Cope Scholar award winners Recipients are honored for contributions of major significance to chemistry EDITED BY LINDA WANG
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he following vignettes highlight the recipients of the Arthur C. Cope Award and the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Awards, administered by the American Chemical Society, for 2018. Vignettes for the rest of the ACS national award recipients were published in the Jan. 8 issue of C&EN. Recipients of the Cope Award and Cope Scholar Awards will be honored at a ceremony at the fall ACS national meeting in Boston, Aug. 19–23.
Arthur C. Cope Award: Steven V. Ley Sponsor: Arthur C. Cope Fund Citation: For his exceptional and creative contributions to the art of organic synthesis.
Current position: director of research and professor of organic chemistry, University of Cambridge Education: B.Sc. and Ph.D., chemistry, Loughborough University
Ley on what he hopes to accomplish in the next decade: “I am a molecule maker; however, I have realized in recent years that there needs to be a very great improvement to the general and sustainable practice of organic synthesis. By relegating many of the labor-intensive routine reaction optimization tasks and the problems associated with reaction scale-up to machines, we can help maximize the precious human resource, thereby providing more time to invent and discover new processes.” What his colleagues say: “What particularly stands out is Ley’s pioneering work and passion to discover new tools to achieve more sustainable and environmentally acceptable chemical practices. In particular, his recent innovative work on flow chemistry technologies has truly changed the world for the benefit of mankind. As Ley pointed out, in patented work in 1999, the conceptual leap forward was to employ these immobilized systems in a dynamic fashion using continuous-flow-processing methods to achieve chemical transforma-
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tions. This is now a major area of activity worldwide, and Ley is widely regarded as its pioneer.”—Matthew Gaunt, University of Cambridge
Arthur C. Cope Scholar Awards Sponsor: Arthur C. Cope Fund
Emily P. Balskus Citation: For transforming our understanding of the chemistry and biology of microbes and their communities and for elucidating their remarkable mechanism for chemical production. Current position: Morris Kahn Associate Professor of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Harvard University Education: B.A., chemistry, Williams College; M.Phil., chemistry, University of Cambridge; Ph.D., chemistry, Harvard University Balskus on what she hopes to accomplish in the next decade: “I would like to have uncovered a true therapeutic target from the human gut microbiota and demonstrated the potential for treating human disease by using small molecules to manipulate gut microbial metabolic activities.” What her colleagues say: “Simply put, professor Balskus is a phenom. She has a penetrating and creative mind, and she is pointing it at fascinating problems, already unlocking mysteries associated with the biosynthetic machinery as it functions
in some of the most complicated environments extant.”—Scott J. Miller, Yale University
Naoto Chatani Citation: For the development of transition-metal-catalyzed reactions for the activation and functionalization of traditionally inert bonds. Current position: professor, Osaka University Education: B.S., M.S., and Ph.D., organic chemistry, Osaka University
Chatani on his scientific role model and why: “Professor Shinji Murai had a great impact on my thinking and my approach to solving research problems. He instilled in me the importance of originality in research. His advice was to not be involved in research that is obvious to other people, but rather to focus my attention on research that no one has ever thought of.” What his colleagues say: “Professor Chatani is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of transition-metal-catalyzed C–H functionalization. He has developed a variety of new transformations involving the activation of unreactive bonds, based on new concepts for transition-metal-mediated bond activation. Importantly, many other groups have subsequently adopted professor Chatani’s pioneering methods to develop new transformations.”—Melanie Sanford, University of Michigan
William F. DeGrado Citation: For ushering in a new era in which proteins came to be considered in much the same way that organic chemists had considered small molecules. Current position: professor of pharmaceutical chemistry and investigator at the Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California, San Francisco Education: B.A., chemistry, Kalamazoo
of asymmetric catalysis. I am sure that he will keep finding equally elegant and creative solutions to difficult problems in the future.”—Alois Fürstner, Max Planck Institute for Kohlenforschung
College; Ph.D., chemistry, University of Chicago
DeGrado on what he hopes to accomplish in the next decade: “We wish to develop an active knowledge of protein structure, dynamics, and function to enable de novo design of functional proteins. I think chemists will soon be able to design proteins from scratch that bind highly functionalized small molecules with high affinity and specificity, as well as enzymelike catalysts for reactions that cannot be catalyzed with nature’s cofactors. It would also be exciting to go well beyond the backbones optimized by nature, as in foldamer research.” What his colleagues say: “Bill was among the first to design a protein and convincingly characterize its properties. Ultimately, this work enabled the design of catalytic and medically important proteins and protein mimetics. His work has inspired a generation of bioorganic chemists and chemical biologists who are now engaged in various aspects of protein and drug design.”—Hang Hubert Yin, University of Colorado, Boulder
Frank Glorius Citation: For contributing new modes of action in NHC organocatalysis and developing asymmetric arene hydrogenation and new transformations in metal-catalyzed C–H activation chemistry. Current position: professor of organic chemistry, University of Münster
Robert Knowles Citation: For the application of proton-coupled electron transfer to organic synthesis.
Current position: professor of chemistry, Princeton University Education: B.S., chemistry, College of William & Mary; Ph.D., chemistry, California Institute of Technology
Knowles on what gets his creative juices flowing: “I enjoy reading the literature in areas that are pretty far removed from what we work on day to day and to try to make connections to the problems that we are thinking about. I love that ‘aha’ moment when you realize you can bring together unrelated ideas in an interesting way and develop new reactions or selectivities around that insight.” What his colleagues say: “By developing principles through which the concept of proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) can be applied to reactions of interest in synthetic organic chemistry, Robert Knowles has established an extraordinarily original and successful independent research program and established new directions in the field of reaction chemistry. He is a highly creative synthetic and mechanistic chemist, with a remarkably insightful and probing mind.”—Eric Jacobsen, Harvard University
Education: diploma, Leibniz University Hannover; Ph.D., chemistry, University of Basel and Max Planck Institute for Kohlenforschung
Glorius on what gets his creative juices flowing: “I love art very much, in part also as a source of inspiration and creativity! That’s also why I recently initiated an Art&Chemistry collaboration between 18 chemistry Ph.D. students and 12 art students. Students got to know each other and their respective labs, goals, and ways of thinking, and they came up with ideas and exciting pieces of art.” What his colleagues say: “Frank Glorius is undoubtedly a leader in the field
Dawei Ma Citation: For his outstanding accomplishments on ligand-promoted Cu-catalyzed arylation of nucleophiles and total synthesis of bioactive complex natural products. Current position: research professor, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences Education: B.S., chemistry, Shandong University; Ph.D., chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences Ma on what he hopes to accomplish in the next decade: “I hope to discover more efficient catalytic systems to make some
often used transformations in organic synthesis greener and more practical, and powerful approaches to make valuable complex organic molecules more conveniently available.”
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What his colleagues say: “Dawei’s methods are some of the most often used reactions in modern drug discovery, and his work in alkaloid total synthesis is truly stunning.”— Phil Baran, Scripps Research Institute
Heather D. Maynard Citation: For the discovery of high-yielding and readily adoptable methods to synthesize polymers, protein-polymer conjugates, and hydrogels and their applications in biology and medicine. Current position: professor of chemistry and biochemistry and associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles Education: B.S., chemistry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; M.S., materials science, University of California, Santa Barbara; Ph.D., chemistry, California Institute of Technology
Maynard on what she hopes to accomplish in the next decade: “I am excited about our promising research to stabilize biologics to environmental stressors, and I hope to see this begin to make an impact in human medicine. It would be life changing for many people, especially those in third-world countries, if medicines could be kept at room temperature even in hot climates. I plan to accomplish the preclinical research necessary to move this work forward; simultaneously, I will be synthesizing new materials and working to increase our understanding of the mechanisms at work on the chemical level.” What her colleagues say: “Professor Maynard has the terrific ability to identify unmet synthetic needs in bioconjugation and materials chemistry and solve them, and it is her ability to apply materials and bioconjugates to solve important problems that is also defining. Maynard found that controlled radical polymerizations could be conducted in the presence of JANUARY 15, 2018 | CEN.ACS.ORG | C&EN
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