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American ChemicaKiiMhas grown to become the w o r y ^ ^ S | t scientific association, with m o r l i f t ^ 163,000 members. Through theiii^Kf ACS has dedicated itself to the a d p ^ ^ e n t of the chemical enterprise Bnc^jg^^iBd practltillL titioners. This special isB^mShemical & r
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Engineering News, the o f ^ M | i | a n of the society celebrates ACS bg|pj|gnmg some of the milestones in its illu^||^)ast and its present structure for ser nWiiiiprofession. Between these two sectioiiil^^N features the thoughts and aspirat$fg^§171 young :l77^y-4:v CA, Joe. '
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PUBLICATIONS Industrial & Engineering Chemistry News Edition, the precursor to C&EN, was an early ACS publication. ACS's most recent journal, Nano Letters, was first published on Jan. 10.
for ACS functions and is rented to other organizations. In 1984, the ACS Board decided to put up a 12-story office building next to the existing headquarters building in Washington. The building was raised on society-owned land, which previously had been used for employee parking. The building was completed in spring 1988, but not without mishap. Construction was stopped for more than three months by the D.C. government when monitors indicated movement in a wall of the abutting Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. The matter was adjusted and, upon completion, the building was soon fully leased, except for twofloorsoccupied by ACS. Today, the society's operations fully occupy the building, which in 1989 was named the Donald F. & Mildred Topp Othmer American Chemical Society Building to recognize their $2.5 million contribution to the ACS Campaign for Chemistry of 1987-91. Later on, in 1994, the ACS headquarters building was extensively renovated inside and out. Many staff and operations made do in temporary quarters nearby for 10 months. And as a measure of growth and success, ACS headquarters staff currently require additional office space, which is leased in nearby buildings. CAS has completed a building/renovation program to handle its evolving projects. The program includes a new $20 million data center to house the extensive computer and communications facilities needed to maintain and distribute databases through a global network. CAS staff currently are moving in to the 46,000-sq-ft building. CHEMISTRY AND THE PUBLIC. The
ACS-sponsored National Chemistry Day first happened on Nov. 6,1987 It had been proposed by George C. Pimentel in 1986 when he was society president. The idea was to educate the general public about chemistry and its benefits. 1985 Ozone hole first observed over Antarctica (shown at right). 1985 Fullerenes are first observed and characterized by Robert F. Curl Jr, Richard E. Smalley, Harold W. Kroto, and coworkers. 1985 Polymerase chain reaction reported by Kary B. Mullis and colleagues. 1985 Responsible Care pro46
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gram begins in the U.S. based on Canada's program. 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union has a reactor core meltdown, releasing massive amounts of radiation. 1986-87 High-temperature superconductors are; discovered, 1989 Concept o f cold fusion" of deuterium :
Nearly all of the society's local sections at the time, helped byACS staff, developed and presented in their communities a variety of programs, including exhibits and demonstrations in shopping malls and other public places, videotapes for local television or distribution to local schools, museum programs, and open houses in schools and colleges and in some chemical plants. The event has been termed "the most public-ly visible program the society has ever undertaken." Such transfers of information may flow both ways. Mary L. Good, 1987 ACS president, said, "I would not be surprised... if some of the chemical professionals who organized the programs and met the public learned as much about their audience as the public learned about chemistry" National Chemistry Day had legs, as they say in show biz (or somewhere). In 1989, it became National ChemistryWeek (NCW), but remained a biannual event. In 1993, NCW became an annual event. And in 1997, N C W for the first time embodied a unifying theme: mapping calcium and magnesium concentrations (hardness) in waters across the nation. ACS Public Outreach staff mailed to local section coordinators more than 650,000 copies of the NCW activities booklet that year; Experiment 3 in the booklet contained test strips for measuring water hardness. Participants, mostly schoolchildren, returned more than 7,500 data points from 1,300 U.S. zip codes. The unifying theme inl998was 'AWorld of Color," and in 1999 the theme was "Celebrating Polymers." The theme this past year was "Chemistry Reacting to Hunger," and then-president Bill Clinton congratulated ACS on its National ChemistryWeek activities. NCW served as a model for the International Chemistry Celebration (IChC), which ran from November 1998 to November 1999. IChC was built on national public outreach programs, such as national
unveiled by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons; after much initial interest, the idea fades from the mainstream. 1989 The Human Genome Project is launphed EartymOsCprnbir
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atomic bomber, at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space Museum. Repeated efforts to work with the Smithsonian to improve the balance of the exhibit failed, and in 1996 the society included itself out. The officers reported, "Continued support of the exhibit [more than $5 million to that point} was just not a good investment."
ACS S C H O L A R S Before becoming Secretary of State, Colin Powell posed with ACS scholars at the national meeting in Washington, D.C., in August 2000.
chemistry weeks in various countries, and it took advantage of the traditional international cooperation in the chemical and scientific communities. The event was conceived in 1994.The ACS adhoc Committee on the International Chemistry Celebration coordinated the necessary sharing of information and planning. Organizations and individuals from more than 50 countries took part in IChC. International Historic Chemical Landmarks were honored in seven countries. Other programs around the world included nationwide student contests, public lecture series, museum exhibits, and much more. In 1987, the ACS Board launched the Campaign for Chemistry to raise funds to meet critical needs beyond its financial means, strong though they were. The campaign ended in 19 91 with pledges and gifts of $26 million, $19 million of it from corporations. Beneficiaries of the campaign included a variety ofACS educational programs, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and a permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution. The exhibit was the subject of an agree-
drug discovery and materials science. 1993 Dow Chemical wins Supreme Court decision in Bendectin case, requiring judges to use peer-reviewed science in court. Mid-1990s Genetically modified foods—developed for pest resistance, nutritional value, and other reasons—reach commercial marketplace.
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ment that ACS signed with the Smithsonian in 1989. It was titled "Science in American Life" and mounted at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., which at the time had 6 million visitors per year. At the same time, with support from Rhone-Poulenc, ACS acquired the French multimedia exhibit "Molecules & Society," which was then touring U.S. science museums. "Science in American Life," funded by $53 million from the society, opened in April 1994. It started with a view of Ira Remsen's laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and moved through a history of American science, including the N e w a r k World's Fair, the Nuclear Age, and an introduction to biotechnology In the ACS annual report for 1994, the officers said: "Few of us have been completely pleased with the overall tone of the exhibition. Some of our members and other scientists perceive there to be an antiscience bias in the displays." In the same period, readers may recall, the same thing—charges of unseemly bias—happened with the exhibit featuring the Enola Gay, the first
1995 Dow Corning files for bankruptcy under the weight of legal claims from silicone gel breast implant recipients. 1996 Dolly, a sheep, is the first animal cloned. Late 1990s Advanced analytical tools and the ability to control materials at the atomic or molecular level lead to the new field of nanotechnology.
NEW AGE OF PUBLISHING. A major development in ACS operations since 1976 has been the move toward electronic publishing ofjournals—that is, electronic processing and dissemination. To make its journals available on the World Wide Web in a practical manner, the society has invested some 25 years and many dollars in computer-based systems and staff training. An early step came in 1975—well before the advent of the Internet—when the Publications Division started work on in-house production of journals using a database approach. In 1980,1,000 articles from the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry were loaded as a private database at Bibliographic Retrieval Services (BRS) as an experimental prototype electronic journal. In 1981, an experimental file of 16 ACS journals was loaded at BRS. Step followed step, and in April 1996, the Journal of Physical Chemistry, on its 100th birthday, became the first ACS journal to be released on the Web. That August, Biochemistry and Environmental Science & Technology were released on the Web. By the beginning of this year, all of the society's 34 journals and magazines had Web as well as print editions. The steady evolution of the Chemical Abstracts Service during the past quarter century can be limned in the fewest words, perhaps, in terms of revenues. In 1975, CAS garnered 95% of its revenues from printed materials and the rest from electronic services; by the end of 2000, printed services accounted for 16% of revenue and electronic services for 82%. The shift toward electronic processing and products was
2000 Chemicals and allied products shipments in the U.S. reach nearly $440 billion annually. 2001 Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics independently publish papers reporting the complete sequencing of the human genome.
MISCELLANY Femtosecond spectroscopy 1987 Prozac fluoxetine, 1987 Metallocene catalysts early 1990s Stem cell therapy 1990s Tissue engineering 1990s Leptin isolated Friedman, 1995 Formivirsen antisense drug, 1998 Viagra sildenafil, 1998 Malaria vaccine 1999
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ACS HISTORY in academe and government driven in part by worldwide that operate primarily via the growth in research in chemistry Internet. In the new arrangement, and related sciences. During the institute will appoint its 1975-99, the number of abown director, who will be an stracts produced by CAS nearly employee of the society. ACS tripled, to more than 19 million will supply a $200,000 starter since it began. grant and $300,000 per year for CAS had been producing five years as core funding. computer-readable tapes of bibliographic records by 1968. 126TH YEAR AT HAND. ACS These were licensed to comcompleted its 125th year with mercial vendors who marketed gains on all fronts. Membership them for online searching. By in 2 0 0 0 totaled more than 1975, publication of Chemical 163,000, up 47% from 1976; of Abstracts issues was fully comthose chemists in the workputerized. In 1980, CAS introforce, 61% worked in industry, duced its own online service, 2 6 % in academe, and 8% in named, appropriately, CAS government. Expenditures Online. InNovember 1981, CAS totaled some $334 million, introduced searching by strucabout nine times the amount in ture or substructure diagram. 1976. The number of divisions, During the years since, strucreflecting members' profesture-based searching has proven sional interests and specialties, to be the most useful aspect of totaled 33 at the beginning of online access to CAS records. this year as opposed to 28 in In 1983, ACS and the Ger1976. The number of journals man scientific organization FIZ and magazines had increased Karlsruhe agreed to collaborate NATIONAL CELEBRATION ACS national meetings similarly from 22 in 1976 to 34 in an international network of have grown in size and in breadth of subjects covered as today databases in chemistry, chemi- the chemical enterprise has grown. These scenes from the These gains are not, of cal engineering, and related sci- national meeting in San Francisco in late March 2000, course, happenstance. The sociences. They introduced the new which had more than 18,000 attendees, are a testament to ety periodically develops and network, the Scientific & Tech- those achievements. reviews its strategic plan to nical Information Network, or ensure remaining on course. The current STN International, in May 1984. With this site for several years, but with ChemCenstrategic plan, covering 2001-03, focuses development, CAS Online became the ter created a one-stop site—the leading on three interrelated centers of attention: family of CAS files on STN. portal for chemically related information: • Moving toward customization of Also in 1984, CAS introduced the neatly meetings; professional services such as products and services to suit the diverse named CAOLD database. CAOLD was employment, journals, CAS services, and individual needs of members and other designed to include ChemicalAbstracts ref- document-delivery; and much more. beneficiaries. erences to substances indexed before 1965, • Innovative use of the Internet as the when the CAS Chemical Registry system GREEN CHEMISTRY. In the mid-1990s, driving force of information technology was started. In 1998, CAS added to ACS members helped the Environmental and information services. CAOLD images of Chemical Abstracts Protection Agency design the Presidential • International delivery of services in Green Chemistry Challenge Awards. The pages from 1907-66, an additional 60 collaboration with appropriate partners. awards aim to recognize and promote funyears of records for search and retrieval. damental research and technologies that The future, again, is unpredictable. But In 1995 came SciFinder, a desktop combat pollution and are broadly applicalate in 2 0 0 0 , the business cycle, which research tool designed for easy interaction ble in industry In 1996, at EPA's request, some thought—or hoped—might have with the search system. SciFinder Scholar, the society agreed to manage the selection gone away reared its pesky head again. The launched in 1997, is designed for use by panel for the awards. The society's work stock market faltered; business activity chemistry students and faculty in the Green Chemistry Awards program slowed; the chairman of the Federal And so it goes. With the advent of the was recognized in 1997 by the receipt of a Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, cut interW o r l d w i d e Web, in the 1990s the sospecial award from then-vice president est rates; and President George W Bush ciety, among other moves, launched Al Gore's National Performance Review pledged to pursue his campaign promise C H E M P O R T , a cooperative effort of On Jan. 1, the Green Chemistry Instito cut income taxes. And as the nation— CAS, the ACS Publications Division, sevtute (GCI) became part ofACS operations or even the world—goes, so goes the Amereral other publishers, and CAS's STN partin Washington, D.C.The two organizations ican Chemical Society Stay tuned. ners FIZ Karlsruhe and Japan Science & plan to pursue their joint interests in the Technology Corp. C H E M P O R T offers discovery and design of chemical products K. M. Reese is aformer managing editor of links from databases to full-text journal and processes that eliminate generation and C&EN and longtime author of Newscripts. articles and patents on the Web. use ofhazardous substances. GCI began and C&EN Senior Editor Stephen Ritter conIn 1996, ACS unveiled its ChemCenter has grown as a network ofinterested people tributed to this article. website. The society had maintained a web48
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