2005 ACS National Award Winners

Following is the second set of vignettes of recipients of awards administered by the American Chemical Society for 2005. C&EN will publish the vignettes of the remaining recipients in successive January and February issues. An article on George A. Olah, 2005 Priestley Medalist, is scheduled to appear in the March 14 issue of C&EN along with his award address.

Most of the award recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony, which will be held on Tuesday, March 15, in conjunction with the 229th ACS national meeting in San Diego. However, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar awardees will be honored at the 230th ACS national meeting in Washington, D.C., Aug. 28–Sept. 1.

Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry

Sponsored by Mallinkrodt Baker Inc.

"I never expected to be a scientist," says Christy Haynes, winner of the Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry. She was inspired by her high school chemistry teacher, who suggested that she compete in the Science Olympiad, and that vote of confidence got her started. But that teacher was only the first to recognize her talents.

Her preceptor for her Ph.D. work at Northwestern University, Richard P. Van Duyne, Morrison Professor of Chemistry, supported her at every step, she says. "He has been telling me for years that I can do anything I want to do. I can't emphasize enough to new graduate students how important it is to find an adviser whom you can communicate with and respect." For his part, Van Duyne says he "was certain that Christy Haynes's research, both quality and quantity, was of the caliber required to win this award." Haynes is "exceedingly bright and hardworking," he says, combining "laserlike focus with imagination, deep insight, and the relentless determination to get the job done."

Haynes finds all subdisciplines of chemistry to be fascinating. She performed undergraduate research in a synthetic organic chemistry laboratory at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minn.; went to graduate school intending to pursue inorganic chemistry research; actually focused on physical, surface, and materials chemistry; and is doing a postdoc in an analytical chemistry lab. "I'm not indecisive," she explains. "I just love the idea of using the strengths of each subfield."

Haynes's thesis work explored novel nanofabrication techniques and the application of the resulting nanoscale features in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Van Duyne says this work opened new research directions and solved some long-standing problems. He cites two cases.

The first case--an important puzzle in SERS--is the convoluted relationship between nanoparticle structure, the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) spectrum, SERS intensity, and the laser excitation wavelength. Haynes independently developed a completely new approach to unravel this problem. Her results clearly demonstrated that the largest SERS enhancement occurs when the energy corresponding to the LSPR maximum is located near the midpoint between the energy of laser excitation and the energy of the Raman-scattered photons.

Second, Haynes was the key player in the development of a new glucose sensor based on SERS. She demonstrated that methyl-terminated alkanethiols partition glucose near enough to a nanostructured silver surface to permit strong SERS signals to be measured. She also showed that a polyethylene glycol terminated self-assembled monolayer permits in situ operation in aqueous solution with 0.15 M saline and serum albumin and has long-term (three-day) stability.

In addition to Haynes's professional capabilities, and perhaps just as important, according to Van Duyne, "Haynes is a very warm and sharing person." While doing the research that led to this award, she taught in the Northwestern Preparing Future Faculty Program, mentored students at Chicago State University, and wrote three papers for the Journal of Chemical Education. She also judges elementary and high school Odyssey of the Mind competitions "because I love to see how creative young people can be."

Currently, Haynes is a postdoctoral fellow with R. Mark Wightman at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In the fall, she will begin her appointment as an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota. Other awards she has received include the Gold Graduate Student Award of the Materials Research Society, the ACS Analytical Division Fellowship, and Northwestern University's Presidential Fellowship.

Van Duyne's outlook on his role as preceptor explains his ability to guide Haynes to achievements that qualified her for this award. He believes that "no matter how smart or hardworking you are, your science will be only as good as your students and postdocs. They are our nation's most valuable resource. They need to be treated well, nurtured, and given all possible opportunities for success."

Van Duyne received a B.S. in chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He began his teaching career at Northwestern University in 1971. His awards and honors include election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2004), the Earle K. Plyler Prize for Molecular Spectroscopy of the American Physical Society (2004), the Pittsburgh Spectroscopy Award (1991), the National Fresenius Award of Phi Lambda Upsilon (1981), and the Coblentz Memorial Prize in Molecular Spectroscopy (1980), among others.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Analytical Chemistry.--JANET DODD

ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry

Sponsored by IBM

It's perhaps obvious that quantum chemical systems change over time. But describing this time dependence quantum mechanically was considered staggeringly difficult and complex. Over the past three decades, though, the theoretical work of Eric J. Heller, professor of chemistry and of physics at Harvard University, has made it possible to treat previously intractable time-dependent quantum mechanical problems, including those in spectroscopy and molecular dynamics.

His work on time-dependent electronic spectroscopy, including resonance Raman scattering, led to now-routine abilities to extract detailed, accurate information from spectra, including those of large molecules. The vogue field of femtosecond pulse experiments, for which California Institute of Technology chemistry and physics professor Ahmed H. Zewail won the 1999 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, also owes a debt to Heller's work.

"His ideas have been essential not only for the development of new computational methods, but often they have fundamentally changed the way we think about chemical behavior," notes John C. Tully, chemistry and physics professor at Yale University.

"He has transformed perceptions about spectroscopy in ways that have profound implications about this central subject in physical science," adds James L. Kinsey, D. R. Bullard-Welch Foundation Professor of Science at Rice University.

Heller has contributed to the fields of quantum chaos and also semiclassical mechanics, which bridges the quantum mechanical and classical worlds.

Born in 1946 in Washington, D.C., Heller received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1968 and a Ph.D. in chemical physics from Harvard in 1973.

Heller was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1975 to 1983, then spent two years at Los Alamos National Laboratory before becoming a professor at the University of Washington. In 1993, he returned to Harvard as a physics professor. From 1993 to 1998, he was director of the Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular & Optical Physics at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Harvard University physics department. Since 1998, he has been a professor there of both chemistry and physics.

He is a principal investigator for the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms and the Harvard-MIT Nanoscale Science & Engineering Center.

Heller has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship in 1992, the Glenn T. Seaborg Award in 1981, and the Herbert N. McCoy Award in 1981. He was an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellow from 1976 to 1982 and has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences since 1994. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Physical Chemistry.--ELIZABETH WILSON

Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry

Sponsored by DuPont

Tackling a broad range of challenging physical chemistry problems and training the next generation of scientists are hallmarks of the work of Stephen R. Leone, professor of chemistry and physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and director of the chemical dynamics beamline at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

"Steve is one of the most recognized figures in physical chemistry because of the quality and breadth of his work," says F. Fleming Crim, chemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. "He has attacked one new and important problem after another with the vigor and determination that set him apart," he adds.

Work in the Leone lab was primarily focused on molecular dynamics in the early days, but in response to a student's interest, it took on a new direction in surface science. "That student's interest led to part of our group working in materials science, which has now become nanomaterials studies using new forms of microscopic techniques," Leone says.

Molecular dynamics in his lab evolved from work on the kinetics and dynamics of state-resolved processes to the use of ultrafast lasers to study fast-time processes. Current research in this area includes the study of wave-pocket dynamics and coherent control. Another major area focuses on the use of ultrafast soft X-rays to probe the dynamics of molecules.

Leone added a new dimension to his lab in 2002 when he moved to UC Berkeley and became director of the LBNL chemical dynamics beamline. At that time, Leone's group developed research projects that use the beamline to study aerosols and heterogeneous types of processes.

As the lab continues to expand the scope of its work, Leone points out that the subject matter has not changed. "The theme has always been to dig very deeply and to understand the detailed microscopic mechanisms of chemical processes," he says.

Leone instills in his students the idea of getting to the heart of a mechanism using various skills, including those from chemistry, math, and physics. "It's easy to show clever effects in the lab, but can we understand the reasons?" he asks. "I encourage the people in my group and challenge them to define very precisely what they are trying to learn, rather than just accepting whatever happens," he explains.

"Steve Leone is generous with his time with his students, in review panels, in heading up a national research facility, and in sharing his knowledge and insight with collaborators and competitors," points out Robert W. Field, chemistry professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "His knowledge of chemistry, physics, and engineering is so broad that multitechnology experiments are second nature to him, and eventually, to his students," he says.

Leone, 56, received a B.A. in chemistry from Northwestern University in 1970. He continued his chemical education at UC Berkeley, earning a Ph.D. in 1974. That year, he got his start in academics as an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Southern California. Leone moved to the University of Colorado, the National Institute of Standards & Technology, and the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in 1976, before assuming his current position at UC Berkeley in 2002.

Among Leone's numerous awards are the ACS Pure Chemistry Award in 1982, the ACS Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education in Chemistry jointly with David J. Nesbitt and James T. Hynes in 1983, and the Herbert P. Broida Prize in Chemical Physics from the American Physical Society in 1989. He has also been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1995.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Physical Chemistry.--SUSAN MORRISSEY

E. B. Hershberg Award for Important Discoveries in Medicinally Active Substances

Sponsored by Schering-Plough Research Institute

Retired Pfizer scientist Christopher A. Lipinski was recognized for his groundbreaking research on the understanding of the physicochemical properties of drugs and other biologically active molecules.

Lipinski is most famous for developing the "rule of five," a mnemonic that can be used to determine the likelihood that a drug candidate will have good intestinal absorption based on its structural features. Seeking insight as to whether a substance would be a good oral drug, Lipinski performed statistical analysis on some 2,300 compounds, resulting in identification of four properties that seem to predict a suitable drug compound: the compound's molecular weight, the total number of hydrogen-bond donors, the number of hydrogen-bond acceptors, and a C log P of less than 5. The name comes from the fact that each property range is an integral multiple of five.

The impact of this discovery is widely acknowledged. Martin Mackay, senior vice president of worldwide research and technology for Pfizer Global R&D, writes that the "publication describing the rule of five mnemonic has spurred vigorous research in the area of computational methods for the prediction of oral permeability. The impact of this paper on the practice of medicinal chemistry is evident by its citation in over 1,050 primary articles and reviews on the subject."

Other research by Lipinski is also being recognized. "Chris Lipinski has had a long-standing interest in the design and evaluation of bioisosteres, with important and well-cited publications going back nearly 20 years," says Mark A. Murcko, vice president and chief technology officer of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Lipinski's contributions include papers on histamine H2-receptor antagonists for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders and aldose reductase inhibitors for the treatment of diabetic complications.

"Chris has also been a leader in the field of designing instrumentation for generating solubility data, and that field has also taken off in recent years in large part because of Chris's work," Murcko says.

Recently, Lipinski was awarded the 2004 ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry Award. In addition to ACS, he is a member of the Society for Biomolecular Screening, the American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Lipinski received a B.S. in chemistry from San Francisco State College in 1965 and a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry in 1968 from the University of California, Berkeley. A National Institute of General Medical Sciences postdoctoral fellowship at California Institute of Technology got him started in the field of drug discovery. "The traineeship did exactly what it was supposed to do, and the NIH-funded natural products synthesis training at Caltech enabled the start of my drug discovery career at Pfizer," Lipinski says.

Lipinski began his work at Pfizer in 1970, and by 1990 he had established a highly automated laboratory using experimental measurements and his rule of five to screen medical compounds synthesized at Pfizer's Groton, Conn., site. He retired from Pfizer in 2002 with the title of senior research fellow, the company's highest scientific position.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Medicinal Chemistry.--DAVID HANSON

F. Albert Cotton Award in Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry

Sponsored by the F. Albert Cotton Endowment Fund

Multiple-bonded compounds of main-group elements beyond the second row of the periodic table have long been an academic curiosity. Synthesis and characterization of these compounds is challenging, and only a few researchers have been able to penetrate far into this field. One of these chemists is Philip P. Power of the University of California, Davis. Colleagues describe him as "the acknowledged master" of the topic and "one of the most innovative synthetic inorganic chemists in the world."

Some of Power's best known work is using bulky ligands to stabilize compounds with double and triple bonds between group 13, 14, and 15 elements. Many of these compounds were thought to be impossible to synthesize, a consequence of the "double-bond rule." In essence, the rule stated that elements below the first row of the periodic table are not capable of forming multiple bonds because of repulsion between electrons of the inner orbitals. Power and others have proven the rule wrong.

One of his group's greatest achievements has been the synthesis and explanation of the bonding of germanium, tin, and lead analogs of alkynes, RMMR, where R = isopropyl-substituted phenyl groups. These molecules have decreasing bond overlap and increasing lone-pair character going from silicon to lead. The disilyne, reported in 2004 by another group, comes close to having classic triple-bond character, but the diplumbyne effectively has a lead-lead single bond and a lone pair of electrons on each lead atom. In a similar vein, Power has synthesized group 14 transition-metal compounds containing "true" triple bonds, one example being a MoGe bond.

Exploring the chemistry of the alkyne analogs further, he discovered a new class of inorganic biradicals. For example, reaction of the germanium alkyne with trimethylsilylazide leads to a Ge₂N₂ ring with a radical centered on each germanium atom.

Power's earlier work includes synthesis of a number of other "firsts." One example is the anionic boraalkene, [R₂BCH₂]^–, which contains a boron-carbon double bond (R = mesityl). He followed that with synthesis of [R₂BBR₂]^2–, a double-bonded borane analog of a substituted ethylene. Other examples include compounds containing B–P, B–As, Al–Al, Ga–Ga, In–In, and Tl–Tl double bonds.

Another significant first by Power is the synthesis of borazine analogs. Borazine is a six-membered aromatic ring of alternating boron and nitrogen atoms, with bulky substituent groups on each atom. Some examples of this class of compounds made by Power's group include B₃P₃, Al₃N₃ (alumazine), Ge₃N₃ (germanazine), and Zn₃S₃.

Power, 51, was born in Ireland and received a B.A. degree from Trinity College at the University of Dublin in 1974. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1977, working on group 14 chemistry under the direction of Michael F. Lappert at the University of Sussex, in England. He conducted postdoctoral work at Stanford University with Richard H. Holm (now at Harvard University), focusing on molybdenum and tungsten iron-sulfur cluster chemistry.

Power joined the faculty at UC Davis in 1981. He has been honored with an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation research fellowship (1985–89), an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (1992), and the 2005 Ludwig Mond Medal of the U.K.'s Royal Society of Chemistry.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Inorganic Chemistry.--STEVE RITTER

ACS Award in Chromatography

Sponsored by Supelco Inc.

Patrick J. F. Sandra, professor of chemistry at Ghent University, Belgium, is "clearly the leading authority in capillary separations in Europe," according to one of his colleagues.

Sandra's application of modern capillary separation techniques to critical problems in chemical analysis makes him stand "head and shoulders above anyone else on the entire world scene," another colleague remarks.

One of his most notable achievements was his development of a rapid and inexpensive system, based on gas chromatography, for detecting polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) during the dioxin crisis that hit Belgium in 1999. In January that year, 500 tons of animal feed containing around 60–80 tons of fat contaminated with about 50 kg of PCBs and 1 g of dioxins was distributed to poultry, bovine, pig, and dairy farms, mainly in Belgium but also, to a lesser extent, to farms in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The source of the contamination was found to be industrial oil, probably from discarded transformers, that had been added directly to the animal feed.

Research by Sandra and his group has spanned all modern separation techniques, including capillary gas chromatography, liquid chromatography, supercritical fluid chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, micellar electrokinetic chromatography, and capillary electrochromatography. The group has also developed novel sample preparation methods, high-temperature capillary gas chromatography, immobilization of gas chromatography phases, and coupled techniques, especially with mass spectroscopy and inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy.

Sandra and his colleagues are currently working on the development of high-throughput and high-resolution separation methods for the analysis of pharmaceuticals and volatile compounds emitted by living plants and glycoproteins. They are also developing an automated system for monitoring more than 350 pesticides in water samples and foodstuffs.

Born in 1946, Sandra graduated with a degree in chemistry from Ghent University in 1967 and obtained a Ph.D. there in 1975. The following year, he became an assistant professor at the university and was appointed professor in 1988. Since 1998, he has also been a chemistry professor at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. He founded the Research Institute for Chromatography (RIC) at Kortrijk, Belgium, in 1986 and RIC in Lille, France, in 2001. He is the cofounder and director of the Pfizer Analytical Research Centre at Ghent University.

Sandra is the author or coauthor of more than 350 research publications and the coauthor of three books on chromatography and another on water analysis. In addition, he has contributed chapters to several other books. His other professional responsibilities include chair of a symposium series on capillary chromatography and chair of the International Organization for the Promotion of Microcolumn Separates.

One of his colleagues notes that Sandra travels extensively, presenting seminars, teaching short courses, and giving workshops. "His greatest contribution to the field of capillary separations is in teaching and training of chromatographers in the most recent developments in the field," the colleague notes. "He has had a tremendous impact worldwide."

Sandra is the recipient of many awards and honors, including the Tswett Award by the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1989, the Martin Gold Medal by the Chromatographic Society in the U.K. in 1994, and the Golay Award by Perkin Elmer in the U.S. in 1995. He is also Doctor Honoris Causa in Pharmacy at the University of Turin, Italy.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Analytical Chemistry.--MICHAEL FREEMANTLE

Herbert C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods

Sponsored by the Purdue Borane Research Fund and the Herbert C. Brown Award Endowment

Gilbert Stork, the Eugene Higgins Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at Columbia University, has spent almost six decades imposing regio- and stereospecificity to carbon-carbon bond formation. His contributions to the intellectual foundations of organic synthesis, his key discoveries of methodologies, and his creativity in melding structure and mechanism into synthetic solutions permeate organic synthesis today.

The hallmark of a Stork methodology is control--constructing a molecule so that where each piece goes and how each piece is oriented are precisely predetermined. His first success, while still a graduate student, was a substituted piperidine in which adjacent substituents on the ring have a cis orientation. Back in 1945, "nobody anywhere was concerned with stereochemistry," he said. His work on the total synthesis of cantharidin, a blister-producing agent from beetles, "was the first stereorational synthesis. It was planned to take care of stereochemistry, and it was successful."

Among a multitude of contributions, Stork mentions four that are most important to him: enamine alkylation, regiospecific enolate formation, radical cyclization, and polyene cyclization.

Almost 50 years ago, Stork showed that converting an aldehyde or a ketone to an enamine allows clean alkylation at the * position. The process allows reactions that were previously impossible for aldehydes. Stork's total synthesis of the indole alkaloid aspidospermine demonstrated the power of the approach.

With regiospecific enolate formation, Stork banished the two-for-one yield when enolates are generated from ketones: Both enolates, resulting from one and the other * positions of the carbonyl group, are formed. Stork demonstrated that with *,ß-unsaturated ketones, the enolate will form only from the side where the double bond used to be. When trapped with lithium, the enolates undergo rapid alkylation. The power of this method was first demonstrated in Stork's stereoselective total synthesis of the triterpene lupeol, where it was applied to centers of asymmetry adjacent to carbonyls.

Radical cyclization to form five- or six-membered rings is not a Stork invention. But Stork was the first to use it in synthesis specifically for its stereochemical result. "We destroy the ring eventually, after having taken advantage of the stereochemical information," Stork said.

Polyene cyclization--also called the Stork-Eschenmoser cyclization--refers to concerted, intramolecular cyclization of 1,5,9, ... polyenes to give fused rings in trans organization. This reaction led to facile but controlled construction of multicyclic systems, as demonstrated in the syntheses of sterols and triterpenes by the late William S. Johnson. In addition, the stereochemical results got people to start thinking that steroids and triterpenes actually form this way in nature.

Stork, 83, was born in Brussels and grew up in Paris. His family moved to the U.S. at the beginning of World War II. He received his B.S. degree in 1942 from the University of Florida, Gainesville. For his Ph.D., which he received in 1945, he worked with S. M. McElvain at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He began his academic career in 1946 at Harvard University. In 1953, he joined Columbia.

Stork is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the French Académie des Sciences. He is the recipient of five honorary Ph.D.s, the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize, and the Robert A. Welch Award.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Organic Chemistry.--MAUREEN ROUHI

Frank H. Field & Joe L. Franklin Award for Outstanding Achievement in Mass Spectrometry

Sponsored by Bruker Daltonics Inc.

Marvin L. Vestal, 70, first became interested in math and science in high school. "I grew up on a farm and attended a small high school in the town of Pendleton, Ind.," Vestal says. "Despite being small, the school had some excellent, dedicated teachers, particularly in math, physics, and English."

Vestal entered Purdue University as an engineering major because that path "seemed to offer the best chance for getting a job solving problems." He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering sciences in 1958 and 1960, respectively.

While he was at Purdue, he got a summer job with Johnston Laboratories that became a full-time job. There, he started the work in mass spectrometry (MS) that has been the focus of his career. When the company moved from Lafayette, Ind., to Baltimore, Vestal went with it.

"Eventually, it became clear that if I wished to be taken seriously as a research scientist, and if I had any desire for an academic position, it would be necessary to complete the Ph.D.," Vestal says. He chose the program in chemical physics at the University of Utah, which allowed him to use his physics course work from an earlier short-lived stint in the physics Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins but to conduct research in chemistry under the direction of Austin Wahrhaftig and Jean Futrell. He received his Ph.D. in 1975.

After leaving Utah, he became a chemistry professor at the University of Houston. "I decided to concentrate most of my efforts toward developing instrumentation and techniques that could make mass spectrometry more useful for nonvolatile molecules," Vestal says.

His work led to the development of the ionization technique known as thermospray. "Thermospray ionization was the first technology to efficiently and effectively couple liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry prior to the invention and broad adoption of electrospray ionization," says Stephen A. Martin, senior vice president and chief technical officer at BG Medicine in Waltham, Mass.

Vestal started a company called Vestec to commercialize thermospray. "After a few years, the company was thriving and I was finding it more difficult to straddle the fence between academia and industry, so I resigned from the university and went full time with the company," he says.

Vestal was quick to recognize the commercial potential of matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) MS following its invention in the late 1980s. He moved Vestec into MALDI shortly after the publication of the initial work in the field.

Alma L. Burlingame, professor of chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, recalls discussing with Vestal the desirability of being able to do collision-induced dissociation, and thus MS/MS, with MALDI. "He immediately began work on design and fabrication of the axial TOF-TOF [time of flight] that is now the commercial ABI 4700 Proteomics analyzer," Burlingame says. (Vestec had been bought by PerSeptive Biosystems, which was subsequently purchased by Applied Biosystems Inc.)

Vestal was until recently a scientific fellow at Applied Biosystems and is now a consultant with MDS Sciex, Toronto. He continues to focus on tandem TOF mass spectrometry and interfaces with separation techniques. "The goal is complete qualitative and quantitative analysis of complex proteomes and metabolomes in less than one hour," he says. "A path to this goal now appears clear, but there is still some work to be done."

The award address will be presented before the Division of Analytical Chemistry.--CELIA HENRY

ACS Award for Computers in Chemical & Pharmaceutical Research

Sponsored by Accelrys

With the uncountable reams of data generated by modern computational chemistry, particularly in drug discovery, the science of manipulating and analyzing that data has become of paramount importance. Peter Willett, professor of information studies at the University of Sheffield, in England, is one of the leaders in this area, known as cheminformatics.

Among Willett's many accomplishments are developing methods for chemical-reaction indexing and searching, for indexing three-dimensional molecular structures, and for comparing macromolecular structures. Willett is known for his strategies for similarity searching and modeling ligand docking and scoring, areas vital to pharmaceutical development. In 2000, he organized the world's first master's program in cheminformatics, at the University of Sheffield.

"This careful attention to testing and validation is characteristic of all of professor Willett's research into new chemoinformatic methods," notes Robert S. Pearlman, Regents Chair of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas, Austin.

Willett was born in 1953 and earned his B.A. in chemistry at the University of Oxford in 1975 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in information studies in 1976 and 1979, respectively. He has spent his entire career at Sheffield. After serving as a lecturer and reader, Willett became a professor in 1991 and was awarded a D.Sc. in 1997.

He has written more than 380 journal articles, invited chapters, and articles, as well as several textbooks on chemical information processing. He has been a fellow of the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry since 2000 and a member (1979) and fellow (1989) of the Institute of Information Scientists. In 2002, he was named a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library & Information Professionals.

His awards include ACS's Skolnik Award in 1993, the Tony Kent Strix Award of the Institute of Information Scientists in 2001, and the Lynch Award of the Chemical Structure Association Trust in 2002. He is currently on the editorial boards of the Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design and the Journal of Molecular Graphics & Modelling, among other publications.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Computers in Chemistry.--ELIZABETH WILSON

James T. Grady–James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public

Imagine being invited to sit at your neighbor's kitchen table to discuss chemistry over a good meal. That's the opportunity Robert L. Wolke has created for himself with his Washington Post newspaper column, "Food 101." Through his lively columns and equally popular books, Wolke conveys the concepts and processes of chemistry to many thousands of readers in an unthreatening context.

Everyone eats, and almost everyone has wondered about food ingredients and the transformations they undergo in cooking. Wolke, 76, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, capitalizes on his readers' natural curiosity, making chemistry enjoyable, accessible, and relevant.

Wolke describes himself as "an inveterate wonderer" and says he loves explaining things to people. In his biweekly columns for the Post's food section, he turns his scientific knowledge and subtle wit to the task of explaining the science of food and cooking. He has tackled such topics as how fruits ripen; how microwave ovens work; carbonated beverages; stainless steel; baking powder; chlorinated water; cleaning silver with electrochemistry; decaffeinated coffee; champagne bubbles; food irradiation; and many more.

Besides conveying information, Wolke depicts how scientists go about finding answers to questions. In one column, he examines the claim that adding chunks of raw potato can rescue oversalted soup. He describes a controlled experiment in which he measures the amount of salt before and after simmering raw potato in a model broth. In a few short, accessible paragraphs, he demonstrates by example how a scientist designs an experiment, attempts to identify and control as many variables as possible, and formulates an explanation based on observations.

Wolke has also authored a series of engaging books that present chemistry and related sciences to the general public: "What Einstein Didn't Know: Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions," "What Einstein Told His Barber: More Scientific Answers to Everyday Questions," "What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained," and a fourth "Einstein" that will be out in April. The books have been translated into 18 languages. As a result, Wolke receives e-mail messages from all over the world.

In addition to his written work, Wolke has reached a wide audience through more than 200 radio interviews. Many of his appearances have been on call-in shows, where he answered listeners' questions about science. He also has appeared on television in the U.S. and Canada.

Writing about science for the general public became Wolke's full-time occupation after he retired from the University of Pittsburgh in 1990. He spent 30 years at Pitt, initially as a professor in the chemistry department, where he established the Wherrett Laboratory of Nuclear Chemistry. In 1978, he was tapped to set up Pitt's Office of Faculty Development, aimed at improving the quality of teaching at the university.

Wolke's journalism has been honored with national food-writing awards from the James Beard Foundation, the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and the Association of Food Journalists. Yet it is the Grady-Stack Award that means the most to him: "I'm thrilled to have my work recognized by my peers in chemistry," he says.

Wolke presented his award address at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 29, 2004.--PAMELA ZURER

ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry

Sponsored by Aldrich Chemical Co.

Biomolecular compounds such as carbohydrates and glycoproteins are often so complex and have so many structural variations that they are among the most difficult targets of organic synthesis. However, research by Chi-Huey Wong, Ernest W. Hahn Professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research Institute, has helped make such syntheses easier to carry out. He's now being honored for "pioneering contributions to enzyme-based and programmable one-pot organic synthesis."

Wong's research has been characterized by "the elegant fusion of chemistry and biology to develop new methods to solve major synthetic problems," writes a colleague. "Most of the methods and strategies [Wong] has developed are breakthrough achievements that have made possible the synthesis and study of classes of compounds vitally important in biology and medicine and have pointed the way toward new green methodologies for use in large-scale chemistry. His work has not only shaped the development of a new field in chemistry, but also has had a profound impact on the way organic chemists approach synthesis and drug development."

Wong's contributions to organic synthesis are principally in the use of biocatalysts and the design, synthesis, and evaluation of enzyme inhibitors, carbohydrate mimetics, oligosaccharides, and glycoproteins.

Among his specific achievements are major advances in the development of chemo-enzymatic methodology for the synthesis of iminocyclitols, uncommon sugars, glycoproteins, and other types of molecules. His innovative work on aldolase reactions provided a deeper understanding of Schiff base catalysis and led to the design of a new catalyst for the synthesis of epothilones and other natural products.

He developed an enzymatic sulfation technique for synthesizing sulfate-containing carbohydrates and glycopeptides. And his work on a new class of RNA-binding small molecules led to the creation of aminoglycoside antibiotics that target specific RNAs and inhibit resistance-causing bacterial enzymes.

Wong's pioneering development of a general method for programmable, one-pot oligosaccharide synthesis, using the computer program Optimer and hundreds of prepared building blocks with predetermined reactivity, is considered one of the primary routes for automated synthesis of carbohydrates and glycoarrays.

Wong, 56, was born in Taiwan. He obtained B.S. and M.S. degrees at National Taiwan University. He earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1982 in George M. Whitesides' group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and served as a postdoctoral fellow for one additional year with Whitesides after the group moved to Harvard University. At Texas A&M University, Wong was assistant professor and associate professor of chemistry (1983–86) and then professor of chemistry and of biochemistry and biophysics (1987–89). In 1989, he moved to his present position at Scripps.

Previous honors he has received include the Presidential Young Investigator Award, an ACS Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, the International Carbohydrate Award, the ACS Harrison Howe Award, the ACS Claude S. Hudson Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry, the International Enzyme Engineering Award, and a Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. He is also a founder of Optimer Pharmaceuticals, San Diego.

Wong's award address will be presented before the Division of Organic Chemistry.--STU BORMAN

ACS Award in Pure Chemistry

Sponsored by Alpha Chi Sigma Fraternity and the Alpha Chi Sigma Educational Foundation

Undergraduates might not always know what they want to major in when they start school. But if they have even an inkling of desire for a career in chemistry, getting involved in research early is perhaps one of the best steps on the road to success.

Just ask Peidong Yang, associate professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Yang says he "developed a deep interest in materials chemistry" when he was an undergraduate researcher at the University of Science & Technology of China from 1988 to 1993.

"Back then, there was a big rush for high-temperature superconductors," he says. "It was a particularly exciting time in the field. A new crystal was made every week, if not every day."

Yang spent three years working in a research lab in addition to his course work, eventually completing a thesis on the rational design and synthesis of superconducting cuprates. This undergraduate work in China set the stage for his innovative research in nanostructured materials, conducted while he earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University.

"Peidong is one of the best graduate students to have worked with me over the past 15 years," says Charles M. Lieber, Mark Hyman Professor of Chemistry at Harvard. "He has a deep intellect, is extremely creative, and has a great drive that has enabled him to make significant accomplishments. He is clearly opening up new vistas in nanoscale science and nanotechnology."

After graduating from Harvard in 1997, Yang took a postdoctoral position with Galen D. Stucky, professor of chemistry and materials at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a postdoc, Yang developed a novel method for synthesizing three-dimensional mesostructured metal oxides.

"Peidong came from research at Harvard in inorganic superconductors and jumped into a lab doing organic and inorganic composite chemistry," Stucky says. "He was, as he is now, totally unafraid to try anything."

Stucky also praises Yang for his ability to approach molecular design from a comprehensive, multidisciplinary viewpoint. "He has an in-depth understanding of physics as well as chemistry and brings them together in a powerful way," he says. "I consider him in all regards to be an outstanding individual. His motivation, innovation, and the example he sets as a mentor make him especially deserving of this award."

In 1999, Yang joined the faculty at UC Berkeley and has since earned numerous awards and honors. The Pure Chemistry Award cites Yang "for his innovative synthesis of ZnO nanowires and nanowire arrays and the demonstration of optically pumped lasing in the nanowire materials."

Currently, his group is looking at the properties and biological applications of one-dimensional nanostructures, an area Yang thinks he will continue pursuing for many years to come. "I believe this area has a lot of new chemistry and physics to be discovered," he says.

As a leading researcher in a hot-topic field, Yang shares the benefits of early involvement in research by creating opportunities for undergraduates. "The most rewarding part of working in chemistry is seeing interesting ideas realized by my talented students," he says.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Physical Chemistry.--VICTORIA GILMAN