C&EN: AWARDS

Genome leaders receive Biotechnology Heritage Award

GENOME INNOVATORS Thackeray (left), Venter, Collins, and Paul Henly of the BIO Institute.

The Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF) and the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) have awarded the 2001 Biotechnology Heritage Award to Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, and J. Craig Venter, president of Celera Genomics, for their key roles in the sequencing of the human genome.

The award, which was presented at the BIO 2001 International Convention & Exhibition last month, recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the development of biotechnology through discovery, innovation, and public understanding. "We are thrilled to present the Biotechnology Heritage Award to Collins and Venter for their pioneering work," said Arnold Thackray, president of CHF. "This prize represents our efforts to record the seminal moments in the development of biotechnology."

When these institutions, led by Collins and Venter, published the human genome in June 2000, it marked a milestone for biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, and the pharmaceutical sciences. The determination of the precise sequence of the four chemical bases of DNA along human chromosomes opened up myriad possibilities for science and technology. Future analysis of the human genome will allow researchers to identify new genes, along with their roles in health and disease.

In 1992, Collins assumed leadership of the Human Genome Project the publicly funded effort to sequence the human genome using the clone-based physical mapping approach. Before directing the Human Genome Project, Collins was professor of internal medicine and human genetics and chief of medical genetics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Medical School. Collins' research on "positional cloning" allowed for the identification of genes responsible for diseases, including those for cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease. He earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Yale in 1974, and his M.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1977.

Venter is president of Celera Genomics; senior vice president of Applera (Celera's parent company); and a trustee of the Institute of Genomic Research, a nonprofit organization he founded in 1992. After establishing Celera in 1998, Venter led the effort to sequence the human genome using the whole-genome shotgun sequencing approach. The Institute of Genomic Research produced the first complete genome of an organism, the Haemophilus influenzae bacterium.Venter earned his Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology from the University of California, San Diego, in 1975. After serving on the faculty of the State University of New York, Buffalo, as professor of pharmacology and then professor of biochemistry, he was a section chief with NIH's Institute of Neurological Diseases & Stroke from 1984 to 1992.

William B. Tolman, distinguished McKnight University Professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota, is the recipient of the ACS Eastern New York Section's Buck-Whitney Award. The purpose of this award is to recognize excellent original contributions to pure and applied chemistry. The recipient is preferably someone who has not yet achieved national recognition, such as a national award from ACS. The winner is expected to deliver an address before the meeting at which the award is made. This year, the ceremony will be on Wednesday, Sept. 12, at Surrey House on the campus of Skidmore College in Saratoga, N.Y. The award consists of a bronze medal, a certificate, a cash award, and an expense stipend for the awardee.

Tolman and coworkers synthesize transition-metal complexes for use as catalysts and for modeling the structural, spectroscopic, and functional features of active sites of metalloproteins. In the bioinorganic chemistry area, he has made major contributions that have provided important insights into nitric oxide metabolism, electron transfer, and dioxygen activation. In particular, Tolman's group reported the first example of a synthetic copper-dioxygen complex in which the oxygen-oxygen bond could be cleaved and re-formed in a process that models key biological dioxygen production and utilization reactions.

Tolman received a B.S. degree in 1983 from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., and a Ph.D. in 1987 from the University of California, Berkeley. After postdoctoral studies at MIT, he joined the department of chemistry at the University of Minnesota in 1990 and currently holds appointments in both the department of chemistry and the Center of Metals in Biocatalysis.

With the support of Cognis Corp., the ACS Division of Colloid & Surface Chemistry is offering the Cognis Research Fellowship in Colloid & Surface Chemistry. Cognis is contributing $20,000 under the fellowship for each of two years, typically the third and fourth years, to students working toward Ph.D. degrees in surface and colloid chemistry at graduate schools in the U.S.

Cognis is a worldwide leader in specialty chemicals with almost 9,100 employees in just under 50 countries spread over all five continents. Cognis is the name of the separate legal entity responsible for the chemical activities of the Henkel Group that was set up on Aug. 1, 1999.

The deadline for proposals for the current fellowship is Feb. 1, 2002, for funding to commence in the fall semester of 2002. Information can be obtained from Mark A. Keane, Department of Chemical & Materials Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0046.