NEWS OF THE WEEK
MORE SCIENCE, ONLINE ONLY ACS (BOT H)
ACS NEWS: Synthetic biology, polymer science will be the focus of two new ACS journals on the Web
T ACS Synthetic Biology and ACS Macro Letters are the two newest ACS journals.
HE AMERICAN Chemical Society plans to
introduce two new online-only, peer-reviewed journals that will publish research related to biological systems and synthetic biology, and to polymer science. The journals will publish their first full issues in January 2012. ACS Synthetic Biology will cover approaches to understanding how cells, tissues, and organisms are organized and function in natural and artificial systems, and the application of synthetic biology in engineering these systems. The journal is particularly interested in studies on the design, programming, and optimization of biological systems; computational methods to aid the design of synthetic systems; and integrative applied approaches to understanding disease and metabolism. “The applications of synthetic biology impact all areas of biotechnology, including agriculture, chemical and fuel synthesis, materials, and pharmaceuticals,” notes Christopher A. Voigt, editor-in-chief of ACS Synthetic Biology.
TRIO RECEIVES WOLF CHEMISTRY PRIZE HONORS: Three professors in the
chemical sciences are lauded
T
WO CHEMISTS and a chemical engineer are the
recipients of the 2011 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, awarded by the Wolf Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Israel that promotes science and art for the benefit of humanity. The researchers were honored for their contributions to the synthesis and understanding of organic materials. Stuart A. Rice, a professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago; Ching W. Tang, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Rochester; and Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, a professor of chemistry and natural sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, received the $100,000 joint prize during a WOLF FOUNDATION
Matyjaszewski (left) receives the Wolf Prize in Chemistry.
WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
10
Voigt recently joined the department of biological engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an associate professor. He studies the reprogramming of bacterial organisms to perform coordinated, complex tasks for pharmaceutical and industrial applications. The society’s other new journal, ACS Macro Letters, will report major advances in areas of soft-matter science in which polymers play a significant role, including nanotechnology, self-assembly, supramolecular chemistry, biomaterials, energy, and renewable/sustainable materials. ACS Macro Letters will complement the society’s Macromolecules journal, which will subsequently concentrate on full articles and reviews in polymer science. “Whether it is in sustainable plastics, biomedical materials, renewable energy, or abundant clean water, polymers have a key role to play,” notes Timothy P. Lodge, editor-in-chief of Macromolecules and ACS Macro Letters. “The time is ripe” for the new journal, which will publish findings within four to six weeks of submission. Lodge is a professor in the departments of chemistry and of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota. He studies polymer systems that self-assemble to form nanostructures. Stuart J. Rowan will serve as deputy editor for the new journal. He is a professor in the department of macromolecular science and engineering at Case Western Reserve University. He holds joint appointments in both the biomedical engineering and chemistry departments.—SOPHIE ROVNER
ceremony on May 29 at the Knesset, in Jerusalem. According to the Wolf Prize chemistry committee, Rice “has influenced the course of virtually every aspect of contemporary physical chemistry and has shaped its directions broadly and powerfully.” Rice’s investigations into the properties of organic solids helped formulate and characterize such concepts as exciton behaviors, radiationless transitions, charge transport, and intramolecular vibrational relaxation. Using some of the insights that Rice had gained, Tang created two of the most active fields in organic materials: organic light-emitting diodes and organic photovoltaics. Tang also produced the first workable example of a solar photovoltaic based on organic materials. Matyjaszewski invented the process of atomtransfer radical polymerization (ATRP), a method of polymer synthesis that has revolutionized the way macromolecules are made. The committee noted that Matyjaszewski’s research has had tremendous industrial impact “due to the simplicity of ATRP and its power to prepare tailor-made macromolecules for materials applications, with unprecedented specificity and efficiency.” The Wolf Prizes are sometimes referred to as the Israeli Nobels. In addition to the chemistry prize, awards are given annually in agriculture, mathematics, medicine, physics, and the arts. —LINDA WANG
JUNE 6, 2011
