January 22, 2007

Volume 85, Number 04

pp. 47-52

2007 ACS National Award Winners

Recipients are honored for contributions of major significance to chemistry

VIGNETTES OF THE FOURTH SET of recipients of awards administered by the American Chemical Society for 2007 are presented. C&EN will publish vignettes of the remaining recipients in successive January and February issues. An article on George M. Whitesides, 2007 Priestley Medalist, is scheduled to appear in the March 26 issue of C&EN along with his award address.

Most of the award recipients will be honored at an awards ceremony that will be held on Tuesday, March 27, in conjunction with the 233rd ACS national meeting in Chicago. The Arthur C. Cope Scholar awardees will be honored at the 234th ACS national meeting in Boston, Aug. 19-23.

ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry

Jeff Johnson

Sponsored by Strem Chemicals

A broad approach to chemical research has been a hallmark of the 43-year-long chemistry career of Robert J. Angelici. His focus has been primarily on the synthesis and reactions of transition-metal complexes, seeking to understand how metals activate coordinated ligands in ways that can lead to new types of catalytic reactions.

Angelici earned a bachelor's degree from St. Olaf College in 1959 and a doctorate from Northwestern University in 1962. After a one-year postdoc at the University of Munich, he began teaching at Iowa State University's chemistry department in 1963. He chaired the department for four years and has been a distinguished professor since 1987.

When quizzed about his most significant research accomplishments, he answers with a shrug, "The most interesting project is always the one that we are currently pursuing, and in this case, that is non-nano gold catalysis of reactions, such as those of carbon monoxide, amines, and oxygen."

In the past, gold had been considered to be a poor catalyst, he says, but there has been a growing interest in using nanosized particles of gold to encourage reactions. Angelici found, however, that some unusual catalytic reactions take place when he uses gold metal in a ground-up, chunk form, a 1,000-nanometer-sized powder. "If you ground up your gold wedding ring, I suspect it would be a catalyst of these reactions," he says.

"Our large gold particles catalyze reactions of carbon monoxide with amines and oxygen to form ureas. They also catalyze the oxidative removal of N-H and C-H hydrogen atoms from amines to form imines. So there are at least some reactions easily catalyzed by large gold particles.

"We are having a lot of fun looking for new reactions that gold powder will catalyze. There are details of the mechanism to work out, and many issues need to be resolved," he says with relish.

He and another Iowa State faculty member plan to continue this research after Angelici retires from the university at the end of this academic year.

Another area that Angelici is exploring is the impact of transition metals on fragments of buckminsterfullerene or buckybowls. He found that the coordination of two ruthenium atoms to the buckybowl corannulene (C₂₀H₁₀) completely flattens this curved molecule. "This made us further wonder how such metal-ion binding would change the shape of other curved carbon surfaces, like carbon nanotubes," he adds.

Angelici, 69, has authored more than 370 publications and has written the standard inorganic laboratory text, "Synthesis and Technique in Inorganic Chemistry." He also holds a senior chemist position at the Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory.

He was drawn to chemistry through a high school class, he says, not so much due to an inspiring teacher but because of his own strong interest in chemistry. Angelici views the ACS award as a capstone to his career in inorganic chemistry. "It encompasses my contributions in many areas of inorganic research, in teaching and education, and in service to the inorganic community."

Like most academic researchers, Angelici says he is too busy with science for many nonchemistry interests, but he enjoys hiking, theater, opera, bowling, biking, and ballet. Noting his role as a teacher and chemistry advocate, one colleague called Angelici "a consummate gentleman and a terrific ambassador for inorganic chemistry."

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

ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry

Linda Wang

Sponsored by IBM

Rodney J. Bartlett, graduate research professor of chemistry and physics at the University of Florida, Gainesville, has advanced chemistry not by using chemicals but by solving equations.

Beginning in the 1970s, Bartlett and his colleagues developed the coupled-cluster (CC) theory for molecular applications. Proposed in the 1950s for nuclear physics phenomena and adapted in the 1960s to the study of electron correlation in atoms and molecules, CC theory did not yet exist in a form that was applicable to most chemical problems.

"We extended the theory, derived the equations, and wrote the first computer programs that did general-purpose applications of coupled-cluster theory," Bartlett says. Specifically, his group wrote the widely used computer program ACES (Advanced Concepts in Electronic Structure), which uses CC and its closely related many-body perturbation theory (MBPT) approximations to solve the molecular Schrödinger equation.

Now, the coupled-cluster theory, with the single, triple, and quadruple excitation contributions first presented by Bartlett and coworkers, allows scientists to accurately determine molecular structures; vibrational, electronic, and NMR spectra; and transition states.

Bartlett says his group's calculations allow chemists, in principle, "to learn everything there is to know about a molecule." An example is Bartlett's work on the experimentally unknown, highly energetic molecules tetrahedral N₄, octahedral N₈, and pentagonal N₅^-. Accurate CC calculations show that these molecules can exist under certain conditions and offer identification by their predicted spectra.

Bartlett and his colleagues were also the first to apply MBPT to molecules. Today, second-order MBPT (MP2) is the correlated method that is most often applied in computational chemistry.

"The basic theory that Bartlett has developed with his group laid the groundwork that has led to the rise of coupled-cluster theory as a powerful working tool that is used by thousands of practicing chemists," says Martin Head-Gordon, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Bartlett has been a major force in the development of techniques in the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry," the late Nobel Laureate John Pople once said. "He has done some significant work on detailed applications to individual molecular systems, but the main thrust has been to provide new and useful computational tools for others to use."

Two of Bartlett's classic papers are "Many-Body Perturbation Theory, Coupled-Pair Many-Electron Theory, and the Importance of Quadruple Excitations for the Correlation Problem" (Int. J. Quantum Chem. 1978, 14, 561) and "A Full Coupled-Cluster Singles and Doubles Model: The Inclusion of Disconnected Triples" (J. Chem. Phys. 1982, 76, 1910).

Bartlett, 62, received a B.S. in chemistry and mathematics in 1966 from Millsaps College, Jackson, Miss. He received his Ph.D. in quantum chemistry in 1971 from the University of Florida. He was a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Aarhus University, in Denmark, and, after several years with Battelle, returned to the University of Florida in 1981 as a professor.

Bartlett says he has the best of both worlds. "When you're a quantum chemist, it's like you're sitting at the top of the mountain," he says. "The distinctions between biochemistry, inorganic, and organic chemistry are less important, as all of chemistry revolves around what the electrons are doing in molecules, and that domain can best be 'seen' by applying theory."

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

Arthur W. Adamson Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Surface Chemistry

Mitch Jacoby

Sponsored by Occidental Petroleum Corp.

Charles T. Campbell was captivated more than 30 years ago by the potential of surface chemistry to reveal molecular secrets about heterogeneous catalysis. "I was fascinated by the energy issues: the possibility of using catalysts to help the chemical industry run more efficiently," Campbell says. Three decades later, he's still hooked, and it's for the same reasons.

As an undergraduate student at the University of Texas, Austin, Campbell was introduced to surface science by chemistry professor John M. (Mike) White. "Mike was so inspirational in the way he taught," Campbell remarks, that "I just fell in love with the science." According to Campbell, the Texas professor had a knack for encouraging students and "always had positive things to say, no matter how badly you did."

The latter quality served Campbell especially well one afternoon when he "goofed" while trying to repair a leaking glass vacuum system. As Campbell recalls, after White had finished extensive glass-blowing work to assemble the equipment, Campbell checked the apparatus for leaks and found one. Deciding he could fix it without assistance, Campbell went to work with the glass-blowing torch. Unfortunately, "the whole thing just shattered," Campbell recalls. Always patient, White simply encouraged his student to keep working, Campbell says.

Eventually, Campbell gained recognition for developing surface methods and applying them to catalytic reactions, such as methanol synthesis on Cu/ZnO catalysts and dehydrogenation of hydrocarbons on platinum. He's also recognized for innovations in single-crystal adsorption microcalorimetry and for refining methods for quantitative surface analysis of high-surface-area catalysts.

As Texas A&M chemistry professor D. Wayne Goodman notes, Campbell has "melded" surface analysis and catalysis "into a single discipline" through his work in identifying reaction intermediates and pathways and in measuring absolute reaction rates. In addition, Goodman notes, Campbell "is one of few scientists who have succeeded in using this approach to obtain insightful results accessible to the catalysis community."

Campbell, 53, graduated in 1975 from the University of Texas, Austin, with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering and completed his Ph.D. education there in 1979. From Texas, he went to the University of Munich, in Germany, where he conducted postdoctoral research with noted surface scientist Gerhard Ertl.

From 1981 to 1986, Campbell served as a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico, and then began his academic career at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has been a professor of chemistry at the University of Washington, Seattle, since 1989.

Campbell has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Catalysis, the Journal of Chemical Physics, and other journals, and he has held the position of editor-in-chief of Surface Science since 2002. He has been honored with several awards, including the ACS Award in Colloid or Surface Chemistry in 2001 and the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in 2003.

The award address will be presented to the Division of Physical Chemistry and the Division of Colloid & Surface Chemistry.-Mitch Jacoby

ACS Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science & Technology

Jeff Johnson

Sponsored by Air Products & Chemicals in memory of Joseph J. Breen

Richard C. Flagan first began studying the formation of gaseous pollutants from combustion for his doctorate in mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1970s. Since then, his interest in atmospheric gases has grown to include aerosols in various settings, ranging from pollution to pollen to nanotechnology.

Flagan is the Irma & Ross McCollum/William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemical Engineering and professor of environmental science and engineering at California Institute of Technology, where he is also the executive officer for chemical engineering. Flagan, 59, received his doctorate from MIT in 1973 and joined the Caltech faculty two years later.

At Caltech, Flagan turned his attention to aerosols, initially using available instruments to probe the formation of these small particles in coal combustion and in the atmosphere. His frustration with the limitations of those instruments led him to develop the scanning electrical mobility spectrometer, a device that increased the speed and sensitivity of previous aerosol measurement devices by one to two orders of magnitude.

Before his invention, the only tool that came close to the speed needed to follow changes in chamber studies of smog formation lacked the resolution to quantify aerosol to a level of precision that Flagan and other researchers felt was needed.

To measure atmospheric aerosols, other researchers had tried using a calibration tool, the differential mobility analyzer (DMA). But the instrument was slow and unwieldy, particularly in a dynamic environment where the numbers and sizes of aerosols were changing quickly.

The standard DMA measurement took 10 to 20 minutes to complete, but with Flagan's DMA modification, measurements were done in less than a minute, and the instrument was able to differentiate a much wider spectrum of particulate sizes.

Flagan worked with TSI, a company in Minneapolis, to develop a commercial version of his prototype, which TSI called the "scanning mobility particle sizer spectrometer." It is today in standard use by atmospheric scientists.

His interest has now shifted to the size, weight, and cost of measurement instruments. The modified DMA is still a big, complex piece of equipment, he says, weighing 50 lb and costing $70,000. He predicts that with reduced size and cost, applications will grow. For instance, to ease and expand the ability to measure diesel emissions along a busy highway, scientists want a mobile instrument that can be placed near a freeway and then moved away to gauge the migration of pollutants from their source.

Flagan's goal, however, is to develop instruments that measure the personal exposures of the general population to ultrafine particles and the occupational exposures of industrial workers, particularly those in emerging nanotechnological workplaces. Also, Flagan says he now frequently joins scientists in other disciplines and applies his aerosol-based environmental research in other areas, including nanosciences.

Outside the lab, Flagan enjoys bicycling in the San Gabriel Mountains near his home. And over the past four years, he has helped organize an engineering design team of about 20 girls from the high school where his wife teaches science. They work in his garage on weekends in January and February, preparing for the "FIRST Robotics" competition in March. His wife is the leader, he says, but he helps out and has drawn in Caltech students as advisers.

The program gets kids excited about science, he notes, as well as providing a way for students to get their hands dirty with real experience.

The award address will be delivered before the Division of Environmental Chemistry.

Gabor A. Somorjai Award for Creative Research in Catalysis

Mitch Jacoby

Sponsored by the Gabor A. & Judith K. Somorjai Endowment Fund

Chemical systems that are too complex to be probed in a straightforward way often need to be substituted with simplified stand-ins in order to reveal pertinent molecular secrets. But designing model test subjects and suitable experimental conditions to uncover those secrets is challenging. According to leading researchers, Hans-Joachim (Hajo) Freund, a professor and director of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, in Berlin, excels in designing model catalysts and probing them with novel surface-sensitive techniques.

Freund's "innovative methods" for preparing single-crystal model oxide catalysts and his development of new surface-analysis techniques have led to "major contributions" in the evolution of catalysis, says Gabor A. Somorjai, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Somorjai adds that Freund's 25 years of "outstanding and creative research" have elevated him to the level of "unquestioned leader in Europe of the surface science approach to heterogeneous catalysis."

Among Freund's numerous scientific accomplishments, various seminal studies are singled out by experts for their broad impact. Examples include development of synthetic methods for preparing model catalysts based on the oxides of nickel, aluminum, silicon, niobium, magnesium, and other materials. The Berlin scientist is also recognized for his advances in electron spin resonance techniques and single-particle luminescence methods and for his application of sum frequency generation and other vibrational spectroscopy procedures to probe model catalysts.

The impact of Freund's work continues to grow. As Texas A&M University chemistry professor D. Wayne Goodman notes, Freund initiated much of the oxide-based catalyst research that is under way in laboratories around the world. Goodman adds that Freund and his coworkers have played a major role in bridging the gap between the traditional surface science and catalysis communities and have served as a springboard for "an entirely new approach to fundamental catalytic research."

Freund, 55, earned bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry and physics at the University of Cologne, in Germany, in 1972 and 1975, respectively, and completed his Ph.D. education there in 1978. Following postdoctoral positions at the University of Pennsylvania and Xerox, he began his academic career at Erlangen University, Nuremberg, Germany, where he remained until 1987. He then moved to Ruhr-University Bochum, also in Germany, where he served as a chemistry professor from 1987 to 1996. In 1996, he was appointed director of the Fritz Haber Institute.

Freund has received numerous honorary professorships, including those at the Free University, Technical University, and Humboldt University, all in Berlin. He has been honored with various lectureships around the globe and has been a fellow of the American Physical Society since 2001. He has served on several international science panels and committees and has been named to the editorial boards of numerous chemistry and physics journals.

In two-and-a-half decades of service to the surface science and catalysis communities, Freund has educated nearly 80 Ph.D. students and more than 80 postdoctoral researchers and has published more than 450 scientific papers.

The award address will be presented before the Division of Colloid & Surface Chemistry

Charles Lathrop Parsons Award

Rachel Pepling

Sponsored by ACS

Service to the community takes on many forms, as the 2007 awardee for the Charles Lathrop Parsons Award, S. Allen Heininger, demonstrates.

Heininger, 81, has served his community as an alderman and a police commissioner, served as an officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II, helped create the Council for Chemical Research, served on the board of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and acted as president of the Industrial Research Institute. Currently, he is a trustee of the Science Center in St. Louis and an active church participant. "If I happen to have some capability and someone's foolish enough to think they'd like to have me involved, I generally tend to say 'yes,' " Heininger says.

At the American Chemical Society, Heininger contributed greatly, not only as ACS president but also during his nine years on the Budget & Finance Committee and 15 years on the Pension & Investment Committee. "My interest in chemistry and my concern for the field of chemistry and the advancement of it led me into active service for ACS," he says.

"It's quite an honor, [as I realize] when I go back and look at some of the prior recipients," says Heininger about receiving the Parsons Award. "I wonder about the wisdom of ACS in having picked me for it."

On a more serious note, Heininger explains that service to others is important to him. "Community service is an absolutely critical concept, commensurate with each individual's personal skills and knowledge," he says. "Human beings are most effective when we not only satisfy our own needs and desires but also serve others."

As part of his service to the field of chemistry, Heininger is widely acknowledged as the person most responsible for the creation of the ACS Scholars Program.

While serving as ACS president in 1991, Heininger realized that the society was lacking programs to attract underrepresented minorities into chemistry, particularly those from African American, Hispanic, and American Indian communities. He felt that for chemistry to succeed, this underserved potential talent base needed to be encouraged into the field. In 1994, Heininger convinced the ACS Board of Directors to commit an unprecedented $5 million to a program designed to support and enhance the number of underrepresented minority students aspiring to become chemical scientists. Thus, the ACS Scholars Program was born.

Since the program's inception in 1995, ACS has awarded scholarships to more than 1,600 students who meet academic requirements and demonstrate financial need. To date, the program reports an impressive 80% retention rate.

Heininger also convinced the ACS Board to establish a matching gift program, in addition to the $5 million commitment, to which corporations and individuals could contribute. Heininger led the matching program with his own personal gift.

Heininger received an A.B. in chemistry from Oberlin College in 1948 and a D.Sc. in organic chemistry from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1952. He joined Monsanto as a bench chemist in 1952, acquiring more than 60 patents in his first few years with the company. In 1958, he became a project manager at the former Organic Chemicals Division's development department in St. Louis. Heininger continued to work his way up Monsanto's management ladder until becoming corporate vice president in 1977. He retired as a member of Monsanto's executive committee in 1990.

The award address will be presented in Chicago on Sunday, March 25, 1:15 PM, at the Sheraton Hotel, Michigan B.

Award for Volunteer Service to ACS

Linda Raber

Sponsored by ACS

Morton Z. Hoffman, professor emeritus of chemistry at Boston University, brings "incredible energy, enthusiasm, and competence to anything he undertakes," says fellow volunteer Glenn A. Crosby, professor emeritus at Washington State University. Anyone who knows Hoffman is bound to agree.

Throughout his career, Hoffman, 71, has shown his talents as a superb organizer, a thoughtful initiator of new activities and programs, and a supremely accomplished communicator. The underlying theme of all of Hoffman's activities and actions is education. This theme permeates his service at all levels: local, regional, national, and international.

Hoffman received an A.B. degree from Hunter College of the City University of New York in 1955 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1957 and 1960, respectively. He started volunteering with the ACS Northeastern Section in 1964 and served as its chair from 1970 to 1973. From 1993 to 1997, he was chair of the section's Education Committee; he still serves as chair of the College Education Subcommittee.

As a member of the ACS Division of Chemical Education (CHED) Program Committee, Hoffman organized symposia on radiation chemistry (1981) and inorganic photochemistry (1983) at ACS national meetings. These symposia were so successful that issues of the Journal of Chemical Education were devoted to them and have since served as primary teaching resources for these subjects.

He was reappointed to the CHED Program Committee in 1992 and served until 2004, during which time he organized and co-organized symposia at many national meetings. He also chaired that committee in 1999-2001.

Hoffman has been a member of the CHED International Activities Committee since 1993. In that capacity, he co-organized a "Chemistry in Cuba" symposium (2002) and traveled with the ACS delegation to Cuba for the International Congress of Chemistry (1998) and the Cuban Chemistry Conference (2002). The committee sponsored symposia at a number of international meetings, which he attended as a representative of the division. In 2003, he was elected to the governance sequence of CHED, serving as chair-elect (2004), chair (2005), and immediate past-chair (2006).

He has worked especially hard to make CHED, the Northeastern Section, and ACS welcoming places for high school teachers. He has been a member of the organizing committees of the Northeastern Section's Connections to Chemistry workshop programs for high school teachers since 2000 and the Younger Chemists Committee Exchange with Germany program for undergraduates and graduate students since 2001.

His work has been recognized by the Responsible Care Catalyst Award for Teaching Excellence from the American Chemistry Council (2002) and the James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry from the ACS Northeastern Section (2005).

"There is a moral obligation for me to contribute my time—my most limited, and therefore priceless, existential quality—to the betterment of the world and the human condition, which must go beyond anything I would do for financial remuneration," Hoffman says. "To be recognized by one's favorite professional organization for one's service thereto is the most generous 'thank you' one can receive."

The award address will be presented at the ChemLuminary Awards program at the ACS meeting in Boston in August.

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

Bette Hileman

Sponsored by Schering-Plough

John A. Katzenellenbogen, Swanlund Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is being honored for his pioneering research at the interfaces of chemistry, biology, physiology, and medicine that has illuminated the molecular aspects of estrogen action. In addition, "he has expanded the chemical universe of estrogens and was the first to exploit the estrogen receptor for the in vivo imaging of tumors in humans," says Scott E. Denmark, professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois.

Early in his career, Katzenellenbogen used his synthetic skills to investigate the interaction of small-molecule ligands with hormone receptors. By arming a ligand with a chemically reactive component that would tag the estrogen receptor, he developed [³H]tamoxifen aziridine, a reactive analog of the antiestrogen tamoxifen that attaches to the estrogen receptor covalently and labels it stoichiometrically, even in unpurified cell extracts. This reagent was then used to determine the size, stability, and cellular turnover of the estrogen receptor. "This work represents one of the first examples of the use of affinity labeling to characterize a receptor in unfractionated cellular systems," Denmark says.

Next, Katzenellenbogen devised estrogens radiolabeled with gamma- or positron-emitting radionuclides, which could be used, along with imaging techniques, to provide information on estrogen receptor levels in breast tumors. He was the first to image breast tumors and breast-tumor metastases on the basis of their estrogen receptor content. These images provide information that can be used to predict patient response to hormone therapy.

Katzenellenbogen has also invented new receptor-based reagents that act as novel sensors for assessing the activity of new pharmaceuticals, and he has devised a set of compounds to selectively regulate estrogen receptors alpha and beta. "He applied the most sophisticated capabilities in organic synthesis to problems of pressing medical interest," says Samuel J. Danishefsky, director of the Laboratory for Bioorganic Chemistry at Sloan-Kettering Institute.

Born in 1944, Katzenellenbogen received his bachelor's (1966), master's (1967), and Ph.D. (1969) degrees in chemistry from Harvard University, where he worked with E. J. Corey, professor in the department of chemistry and chemical biology. He joined the chemistry faculty at the University of Illinois in 1969 and became a full professor there in 1979.

Katzenellenbogen is author or coauthor of more than 430 research publications and holds six patents. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Aebersold Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine in 1995, the Greep Award from the Endocrine Society in 2006, and the Cope Scholar Award from ACS in 1999. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and serves on the editorial boards of many chemical and medical journals, including Molecular Endocrinology and the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

In recent work, "we are pushing imaging in breast and prostate cancer," Katzenellenbogen says. "It has a chance of becoming mainstream in medicine, and the pharmaceutical industry is starting to use imaging not only for developing drugs but also to guide in the selection of targeted therapy."

Katzenellenbogen's research has benefited greatly from collaboration with his wife, Benita S. Katzenellenbogen, who is a professor of physiology and cell biology at the University of Illinois. "The two of us together are like an academic pharmaceutical company. I develop compounds or probes, and she tests them in biological systems," he says.

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