ACS Presents Carbohydrate Chemistry Awards

The ACS Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry has selected the winners of its three awards for 2006. The awards, which consist of a scroll and an honorarium, will be presented at the upcoming ACS national meeting in San Francisco.

Anthony S. Serianni, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame and cofounder of Omicron Biochemicals, will receive the Melville L. Wolfrom Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry for his "outstanding service to the division and to the field of carbohydrate chemistry." Serianni's research interests include methods development for site-specific labeling of carbohydrates, conformational studies of simple and complex carbohydrates related to the N-glycans of human glycoproteins by nuclear magnetic resonance, applications of molecular orbital theory to aid in the interpretation of NMR parameters, and structure-function studies of nonenzymatic protein glycation.

David Gin, who begins an appointment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center this year, will receive the Horace S. Isbell Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry for "excellence in and promise of continued quality of contribution to research in carbohydrate chemistry" by scientists not over 41 years of age. Gin's research interests are in synthetic organic chemistry, focusing on the synthesis of complex carbohydrate immunostimulants and bioactive alkaloids.

Mark W. Peczuh, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Connecticut, will receive the 2006 New Investigator Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry. Peczuh's research group has introduced a rational and exhaustive approach to utilizing ring-expanded carbohydrate analogs for probing protein-carbohydrate interactions. The group has developed general synthetic methods for the synthesis of septanosides, conducted conformational analyses of septanosides, and explored the interactions of septanosides with lectins and glycoenzymes.