Awards

• Middleton To Receive First Robertson Award
• Pauling Medal For Whitesides
• New Funding For Second-Career Chemistry Teachers
• Paul Set For Mark Polymer Award
• Buck-Whitney Award Nominations
• Simmons Garners IPI Award
• Spencer To Receive WCC Award
• PMSE Travel Awards Presented
• Award For Chemical Breakthroughs
• Nominations For Richards Medal

Middleton To Receive First Robertson Award

Donald S. Middleton, senior director and head of chemistry for antiviral therapeutics at Pfizer Global R&D, Sandwich, England, has been selected by the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry as the inaugural recipient of its David W. Robertson Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry. This award was established in memory of a widely respected, highly successful, and creative medicinal chemist who passed away suddenly in 2003. It will be presented annually and recognizes seminal contributions by scientists under age 40 to medicinal chemistry. Middleton will receive an honorarium and an engraved plaque, and he will give a lecture at the upcoming ACS national meeting in Washington, D.C.

Since joining Pfizer, he has been involved in the identification of 15 development candidates from seven different mechanistic classes. Two of these compounds are in later stage development. Most notable are his contributions to the discovery of novel neurokinin-2 receptor antagonists and peripherally restricted d-opioid agonists for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome. Middleton helped pioneer the development of a zwitterionic series of d-opioid agonists that enable oral absorption while restricting peripherally acting detrimental effects. He also developed the concept of site-directed oxidative metabolism as a general strategy to avoid active circulating metabolites in vivo.

Pauling Medal For Whitesides

George M. Whitesides, Woodford L. & Ann A. Flowers University Professor in Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Harvard University, will receive the 2005 Linus Pauling Medal of the ACS Oregon, Portland, and Puget Sound Sections. This award recognizes outstanding achievement in chemistry comparable with that of its namesake and first winner, a Pacific Northwest native and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

A symposium focused on biophysical chemistry honoring Whitesides will be held at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore. (near Portland), on Oct. 1. The speakers, in addition to Whitesides, will be Richard N. Zare of Stanford University; Carolyn R. Bertozzi of the University of California, Berkeley; and Kenneth A. Dill of UC San Francisco. The medal presentation ceremony will occur at an evening banquet.

For further information or banquet reservations, visit membership.acs.org/P/Portland or contact Jim Currie, phone (503) 352-2707, e-mail: curriej@pacificu.edu, or Jodi Paar, paar@pacificu.edu, both at Pacific University.

New Funding For Second-Career Chemistry Teachers

Hach Scientific Foundation is offering second-career chemical education scholarships to chemists pursuing a master's degree in education and teaching certificate. The scholarship amount is $6,000 for each year of work toward the education degree, with a maximum of two years.

Applicants, who must be U.S. citizens, must have a bachelor's degree in chemistry, have worked in a chemistry-related field, be in pursuit of a career as a chemistry teacher, and be accepted into an education master's degree program at a university that can grant the degree and certificate within two years.

Applicants should describe their interest in teaching in a two-page essay and submit a résumé and transcripts, proof of acceptance into an education master's program, and a graduation timeline.

Visit the Hach Scientific Foundation website (www.hachscientificfoundation.org) for more information, and send an e-mail to Bryce Hach at brycehach@hachscientificfoundation.org for an application.

Paul Set For Mark Polymer Award

Donald R. Paul, who is director of the Texas Materials Institute and holds the Ernest Cockrell Senior Chair in Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, will receive the Herman F. Mark Award in Polymer Chemistry of the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry. The Mark Award recognizes outstanding research and leadership in polymer science. The biennial award consists of a plaque and an honorarium of $2,000. It will be presented later this month at the ACS national meeting.

Paul's research has focused on broad areas of polymer science and engineering, including polymer blends, membranes for gas separation, permeability aspects in general, and polymer processing. The blends research has led to numerous publications and several books and book chapters dealing with the fundamentals and dynamics of polymer-polymer interactions, the use of reactive compatibilizers in multiphase systems, control of phase morphology during processing by both physical and chemical means, and the recently emphasized area of polymer nanocomposites involving highly exfoliated clay systems. His fundamental work on diffusion has led to improved materials, while his basic work on nanocomposites has been directed toward processing strategies for exfoliating layered silicates in polymer matrices and related nanocomposites.

Buck-Whitney Award Nominations

The ACS Eastern New York Section is soliciting nominations for the Buck-Whitney Medal to recognize original work in pure or applied chemistry. The nominee must have made outstanding contributions to chemistry and be a resident of North America. The section is interested primarily in identifying a chemist whose work has not yet received a significant national or international award, and whose career will be advanced by such recognition.

A bronze medal, a citation, an honorarium of $1,000, and a grant toward the travel expenses to address the local section will be offered. The nominee's work may be in either experimental or theoretical aspects of any field of pure or applied chemistry.

Nominations must consist of a list of the nominee's specific contributions to chemistry and his or her accomplishments. Nominations should be mailed by Sept. 15 to Buck-Whitney Award Committee, Department of Chemistry, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308.

Simmons Garners IPI Award

Edlyn Simmons, section manager for patent information in the intellectual property and business information services department at Procter & Gamble, has received the 2005 International Patent Information (IPI) Award. The presentation was made during the Patent Information Users Group (PIUG) Annual Conference in Arlington, Va., on May 25.

According to the IPI Award's founder, Ford Khorsandian, who is president of Technology & Patent Research International, sponsor of the award, "Simmons has been steadfastly championing the needs of the chemical patent information user throughout her career and is recognized for her consistent accomplishments and advocacy in the improvement of chemical information retrieval and the education of others in the field."

From an early career in chemistry, Simmons transitioned into patents while employed at Merrell National Laboratories. There she became a patent agent and served as patent information manager under the banners of Marion Merrell Dow and Hoechst Marion Roussel. She moved to Procter & Gamble in 1999, continuing her career in patent information management.

Robert J. Massie, Chemical Abstracts Service president, writes of Simmons' participation on the ACS Joint Board-Council Committee on CAS and her pivotal role as cofounder of PIUG: "Through formally established channels such as these, as well as in her numerous presentations, publications, and her daily interaction with scientists and information providers, she has been an important voice in our industry for more than a quarter of a century."

Spencer To Receive WCC Award

Spencer left home at 15, dropping out of high school to begin full-time employment. By 19, she had lived 15 months on her own in New York City and had overcome drug addiction. In 2001, she married and gave birth to her daughter, Maya.

Later that year, she received her high school equivalence diploma and enrolled at MCC to major in biotechnology. After she graduates next year from MCC, she plans to pursue a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and go on for a Ph.D.

PMSE Travel Awards Presented

The Division of Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering's (PMSE) Ford Travel Grants were awarded to Leslie M. Passeno and Sian Fennessey at the fall 2004 ACS national meeting in Philadelphia. These grants are awarded to outstanding female and minority applicants in the polymer field on the basis of their submitted preprint to PMSE for presentation at a national ACS meeting.

Passeno's research entails the synthesis and characterization of linear-dendrimer diblock copolymers such as dendrimer-polyethylene oxide (PEO) diblocks. Particular emphasis is placed on strategies to determine the influence of dendrimer generation and PEO chain length on the behavior of the copolymer in dilute solution. The ultimate goal of the project is to control the morphology of these diblock copolymers in solution, or at an interface, by altering the chemical environment of the system. Passeno is a fourth-year graduate student at Michigan State University.

Fennessey's research is focused on electrospinning for the preparation of continuous nanofiber reinforcements in composite materials. Her efforts are directed toward the fabrication and posttreatment of polyacrylonitrile precursor carbon fibers and determining the mechanical properties of their yarns. The goal of the research is to evaluate the mechanical properties of these high-aspect-ratio carbon nanofibers and to determine their reinforcement effect in thin films relative to commercially produced fibers. Fennessey is a fourth-year graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Award For Chemical Breakthroughs

The ACS Division of the History of Chemistry solicits nominations for its new award program, Citations for Chemical Breakthroughs. Citations will recognize breakthrough publications and patents worldwide in the field of chemistry. The term "breakthrough" refers to advances in chemistry that have been revolutionary in concept, broad in scope, and long-term in impact. Plaques, to be placed near the office or laboratory where the breakthroughs were achieved, will be presented annually to the departments and institutions at which these breakthroughs occurred. All nominations for 2006 citations must be received by Oct. 1. For more information, go to the HIST website at www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mainzv/HIST, or write to hist_ccb@yahoo.com.

Nominations For Richards Medal

Nominations are invited for the 2006 Theodore William Richards Medal Award for conspicuous achievement in any area of chemistry. The Richards Medal, first presented in 1932, is awarded every two years by the ACS Northeastern Section. The next presentation will be made in March 2006.

A nomination package consists of a brief curriculum vitae, a list of up to 20 citations for key publications, and a clear and concise nomination letter outlining the nominee's "conspicuous achievements in chemistry." These materials must be submitted electronically in a single PDF-format file to Charles Kolb, Aerodyne Research, Billerica, MA 01821-3976; e-mail: kolb@aerodyne.com. Nominations must be received by Nov. 1. For additional information, contact Kolb by e-mail, by phone at (978) 663-9500 ext. 290, or by fax at (495) 663-4918.