Alfred Bader Award In Bioinorganic Or Bioorganic Chemistry: Edward I. Solomon

Sponsor: Alfred R. Bader Fund

Citation: For developing spectroscopic methods and defining electronic structure contributions to function in electron transfer and dioxygen activation and reduction by copper and iron metalloenzymes.

Current position: Monroe E. Spaght Professor of Chemistry, Stanford University; professor of photon science, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Education: B.S., chemistry, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Ph.D., chemistry, Princeton University

Solomon on his current scientific goals: “I want to understand the general principles of O₂ activation by Cu and Fe metalloenzyme active sites and how these relate to parallel active sites in heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis. Also how the iron-oxo intermediates in heme enzymes relate to those in nonheme iron enzymes and how the different active sites used by nature in the reduction of O₂ to water enable their oxidase versus proton pumping functions.”

What his colleagues say: “Ed Solomon has enormously impacted the depth, breadth, and eminence of bioinorganic chemistry by bringing spectroscopic methods and electronic structural-bonding insights to both protein-metal and synthetic model chemistries of numerous other research groups.”—Kenneth Karlin, Johns Hopkins University