Professors win top chemistry awards

Jones

hree University professors have each won the most prestigious award in chemistry in their division from the American Chemical Society, which issues a single award in each of approximately 50 categories nationally to recognize scientists who have distinguished themselves in their fields.

William Jones, Richard Eisenberg, and Andrew Kende received the 2003 awards for their work to discover ways to cheaply and efficiently convert chemicals such as petroleum into plastics and medicines, to use sunlight to create fuels, and to construct custom-made molecules.

"I'm delighted for these three members of our faculty and for the College and the University, but I'm not surprised in some sense," says Provost Charles Phelps. "They and their colleagues have been working at the very forefront of some terrifically good and interesting things for some time. This is, in effect, a very nice trio of chickens coming home to roost."

Jones, the C. F. Houghton Professor of Chemistry and chair of the Department of Chemistry, won the organometallic chemistry award for groundbreaking work examining ways to chemically convert the hydrocarbons in petroleum directly into more valuable materials used in end products like medicines, plastics, or other fuels. Jones also is examining ways to reduce the amount of sulfur in gasoline and diesel fuels--a critical step in mitigating acid rain.

Eisenberg

Eisenberg won the Distinguished Service Award for his long record of service to the chemistry community in addition to his research. One aspect of Eisenberg's service is his role as editor-in-chief of the journal Inorganic Chemistry, the most often cited journal in its field.

"I'd like to think that this award has to do with communication," says Eisenberg. "In science it's essential, whether it means giving talks or writing technical papers or teaching. Sometimes we overlook that fact."

Kende

Kende, the C. F. Houghton Professor Emeritus, received the Arthur C. Cope Senior Scholar Award for a lifetime of contributions in the areas of complex molecule synthesis and molecular rearrangements in organic chemistry.

Kende's research focuses on learning how to construct complex molecules on demand. Most of his efforts to devise new chemical compounds are aimed at developing pharmaceuticals, such as antibiotics, anticancer and antifungal drugs. One of his most important contributions makes possible the synthesis of the drug known as Taxol, a prevalent anticancer drug for which Kende created the essential carbon 'skeleton.'

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