February 27, 2012 - IMM@BUCT

AWARDS
theoretical efficiency of solar cells made
from the materials by as much as 30%.
Wasielewski’s lab is also investigating
quantum effects in organic materials with an
eye toward quantum computing. His group
is exploring a phenomenon known as “spin
teleportation,” wherein the quantum state
of a molecule at one location can be replicated
at another location. With his organic
materials, he says, his team is close to accomplishing
this feat with light and to read
the teleported states using microwave pulse
sequences. The use of organic materials offers
the potential to “deploy the arsenal of
organic chemistry, including the tools of selfassembly,”
to make materials for massively
parallel computational systems, he says.
Wasielewski was elected as a fellow of
the American Association for the Advancement
of Science in 1995. His recent honors
include the 2004 Inter-American Photochemical
Society Award in Photochemistry,
the 2006 James Flack Norris Award in
Physical Organic Chemistry from ACS, and
the 2008 Porter Medal.
When asked to sum up his work,
Wasielewski says, “The magic word is multidisciplinary.”
His research demands expertise
in organic, physical, inorganic, and
materials chemistry, as well as instrumentation.
Jovan Giaimuccio, a former group
member now at Independent Project Analysis,
says, “The opportunity to be exposed to
so many advanced forms of scientific experimentation
gives Mike’s students the ability
to discern scientific discovery from experimental
artifact.” —CRAIG BETTENHAUSEN
For young Jin-Quan Yu, his favorite chore
was like a mystical quest. Every month, he’d
trek to a store 2 miles from his home in a
remote village in southeast China to collect
free salt for his family. The vendor would
give Yu empty linen bags that once contained
kilograms of salt. He’d take the bags
home, wet them, and evaporate the water to
collect the salt crystals that emerged, as if
by magic. Yu says he wasn’t thinking about
chemistry then, but he’s pretty sure the experience
was the first indication that he had
“good lab hands.”
Yu, 46, has since put
his hands to use in C–H
activation, arguably the
hottest area of organometallic
chemistry. He is “a
phenom,” says University
of California, Berkeley, organometallic
chemist John
F. Hartwig. “This guy is on
fire and full of ideas.”
A desire to study medicine
led Yu to earn a bachelor’s
degree in chemistry
at Shanghai’s East China
Normal University. “In the
village it could get really
Yu
scary if you were ill,” Yu recalls. “We pretty
much relied on Chinese herb extracts.”
Yu earned his master’s under Shu-De Xiao
at the Guangzhou Institute of Chemistry.
There, Yu’s research led to a catalyst for
ton-scale production of dihydromyrcenol,
a lily-of-the-valley-scented compound used
in shampoos and perfumes.
Fascinated by enzyme catalysis, Yu attended
the University of Cambridge to earn
a Ph.D. with Jonathan B. Spencer. He then
joined E. J. Corey’s Harvard University lab
as a postdoc, hoping to do total synthesis.
But Corey steered Yu toward another
project—allylic C–H oxidation. Yu was reluctant
at first, but became enthralled with
the challenge of converting normally inert
C–H bonds to C–C or C-heteroatom bonds.
After Harvard, Yu began independent
research back at Cambridge as a Royal Society
Research Fellow. In 2004, he became an
assistant professor at Brandeis University.
In 2007, he moved to Scripps Research
Institute, where he is currently a full professor.
He’s garnered many honors, including
a Sloan Research Fellowship, the Japanese
Society of Synthetic Organic
Chemistry’s Mukaiyama
Award, and numerous
awards from pharmaceutical
companies.
“I consider Jin-Quan’s
pivotal contributions to the
C–H activation field to be
some of the very best in the
area,” says Yu’s Scripps colleague
and chemistry chairman
K. C. Nicolaou.
“Many groups have
been focusing on sp 2 C–H
bond functionalization,
but Dr. Yu recognized that
the chemistry of sp 3 C–H
bond functionalization is potentially much
richer,” says Huw M. L. Davies, who studies
C–H activation at Emory University.
In 2008, for example, Yu discovered the
first palladium(II)-catalyzed coupling of
sp 3 C–H bonds with sp 3 organoboron reagents.
Yu’s team also developed the first
palladium-catalyzed enantioselective C–H
activation reactions. Yu says the key is using
ligands that weakly coordinate to palladium.
“By the time I retire, I hope synthetic
chemists, particularly those in the pharmaceutical
industry, will use C–H activation
on a daily basis, like they do cross-coupling,”
Yu says.
In his spare time, Yu likes to play soccer.
His favorite position? “Right wing,”
Yu says. “I want to strike and score.” —
CARMEN DRAHL
JANET HIGHTOWER/SCRIPPS
GABOR SOMORJAI
AWARDED HONDA PRIZE
Gabor A. Somorjai, professor of chemistry
at the University of California, Berkeley,
is the winner of the 2011 Honda Prize
for his pioneering contributions to surface
chemistry. The Honda Prize, awarded
by the Honda Foundation, is Japan’s first
international science and technology
award. The Honda Foundation was created
by Honda Motor’s founder Soichiro
Honda and his younger brother Benjiro
Honda.
Somorjai’s discoveries in surface chemistry
and catalysis have led to a better understanding
of friction, lubrication, adhesion,
and adsorption.
Somorjai’s peers refer
to him as the “father of
modern surface chemistry.”
He received a
medal, a certificate,
and 10 million yen (approximately
$129,000)
during an award ceremony
in Tokyo in
November 2011. Somorjai
CAROLYN BERTOZZI
TO DELIVER CHEMICAL
BIOLOGY LECTURE
Carolyn R. Bertozzi, the T. Z. & Irmgard
Chu Distinguished Professor of Chemistry
and professor of molecular and cell biology
at the University of California, Berkeley,
has been awarded the 2012 ACS Chemical
Biology Lectureship in recognition of her
pioneering contributions to research at the
interface of chemistry and biology.
Bertozzi’s research focuses on profiling
changes in cell-surface glycosylation as-
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