Latest MacArthur ‘Genius Grants’ Awarded

Organic chemist Phil S. Baran and materials scientist Craig J. Fennie are among the 24 new MacArthur Fellows named by the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The award, often called a genius grant, goes to researchers, writers, and artists who show extraordinary promise for advancing science and society. This year’s fellows are getting a funding boost: The five-year unrestricted award has been increased to $625,000 from the previous $500,000.

Baran, 36, is a chemistry professor at Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif. He is best known for his work to make pharmacologically active natural products using total synthesis. Baran’s group has developed methods that minimize the use of protecting groups to streamline syntheses. Just last month, his group reported the synthesis of ingenol, a compound used to treat precancerous skin conditions, in only 14 steps (C&EN, Aug. 5, page 7)

Baran had “no clue” the award was coming, he says. His response was one of “utter shock and disbelief followed by a deep sense of responsibility,” he adds. “The lab is quite humbled and any and all credit should go to the talented and passionate students and postdoctoral scholars.”

Baran already has plans for how to spend the money. “We’ll be pursuing directions and ideas that would have been difficult or impossible to fund outright without extensive preliminary data,” he says.

Fennie, 40, is an assistant professor in the School of Applied & Engineering Physics at Cornell University. His group combines theoretical physics with solid-state chemistry to design new materials. They computationally build those materials atom by atom using quantum mechanical first principles. The new materials could be used for fabricating optical and electronic devices.

“I’m interested in the rational design of materials that have the properties you want them to have,” Fennie says. “I’d like to take this approach and uncover new materials with qualitatively different types of properties than those we have been thinking about over the years. A lot of new physics and a lot of new solid-state chemistry will need to be done to gain the intuition I need to accomplish this task.”