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Prof. Atkins nowadays spends virtually all his time writing books, which range from college textbooks (such as General Chemistry; Physical Chemistry; Inorganic Chemistry; Molecular Quantum Mechanics; Quanta; Concepts of Physical Chemistry; etc) to books on science (particularly chemistry) for general audiences (such as Molecules; The Second Law; Atoms, Electrons, and Change; The Periodic Kingdom).
Presently,
Prof. Atkins is the Chairman of the IUPAC Committee on Chemistry
Education.
Ivano
Bertini
After
the first studies on
theoretical/physical inorganic chemistry, he has studied the
structure-function
relationship of metalloproteins since 1975. In 1994 he transformed his
lab into
an NMR lab for structural biology for metalloproteins based on the
browsing of
genome data banks. He pursued the advancements of the technology for
solution
structure determination, particularly for paramagnetic metalloproteins,
and
developed specific software. Through the efforts of his research group
more
then 50 structures of proteins have been solved He also established a
molecular
biology department for high throughput protein expression and
purification. He
has studied electron relaxation through nuclear relaxation at variable
fields
(a field called relaxometry) and has contributed to the theoretical
description
of the various aspects of electron and nuclear relaxation.
Since 1994, his lab has been recognized as a European infrastructure on biomolecular NMR. He has been coordinating European activities in the field of biological NMR since 1998, first through a Concerted Action and then through an Infrastructure Cooperation Network, both funded by the European Commission. In 1999 he founded the present Center of Magnetic Resonance of the University of Florence.
Prof. Bertini received a Honoris Causa Doctorate from the University of Stockholm, Sweden in 1998 and one from the University of Ioannina, Greece in 2002.
Prof. Bertini has published more than 500 research articles and is the author or editor of 22 books.
Prof. Ronald Breslow received his undergraduate and graduate training at Harvard University, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry in 1955, working with Prof. R.B. Woodward. He then spent a year in Cambridge, England as a postdoctoral fellow with Lord Todd, and came to Columbia University in 1956 as an Instructor in Chemistry. He is now the Samuel Latham Mitchell Professor of Chemistry at Columbia.
Professor Breslow's research interests can be described generally as involving the design and synthesis of new molecules with interesting properties, and the study of these properties. Examples include the cyclopropenyl cation, the simplest aromatic system and the first aromatic compound prepared with other than six electrons in a ring.His
work on
establishing the phenomenon of anti-aromaticity has involved the
synthesis of novel
molecules, as well as their study. Even in work on purely mechanistic
questions, such as his discovery of the chemical mechanism used by
thiamine (vitamin B-1) in biochemical reactions, the
synthesis and study of novel molecules has played an important role.
Although he continues his interest in unusual conjugated systems, his major emphasis in recent years has been on the synthesis and study of molecules that imitate enzymatic reactions. This work has included the development of remote functionalization reactions and the development of artificial enzymes.
Recently he has
developed a new group of
cytodifferentiating agents with potential use in cancer chemotherapy.
He is the author
of almost 400 publications.
Prof. Breslow's
productivity extends beyond the lab.
He hasmade significant contributions to chemical education and to
improvement
of the public image of chemistry. Columbia honored him with the Great
Teacher
Award in 1981. He wrote a popular book entitled «Chemistry Today
and Tomorow»
in 1996.
Prof. Breslow served as President of the American Chemical Society in 1996.He is a member of the U.S National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Fellow of numerous academies and societies worldwide.
Among many prestigeous honors and
awards, Prof.
Breslow was awarded the U.S. National Medal of Science (1991) and the
American
Chemical Society Priestley Medal (1999). Most recently, in 2003,
«in
recognition of a lifetime of achievement in basic
chemical research and contributions to the scientific community»
he
received the Welch Award in Chemistry.
2002 Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry for his “invention of a pioneering technique in mass spectrometry that allows researchers to “weigh” large biological molecules, such as proteins, with unprecendented accuracy, which can contribute, inter alia, to the development of new pharmaceuticals”.
Prof. Fenn received a B.A. in chemistry from Berea College in 1937, and a Ph.D. degree from Yale in 1940. After spending the first part of his carrier in industry (process development) and in U.S. Navy (basic and applied research in jet propulsion), he joined the Yale faculty in 1967 as a professor of applied science and chemistry, and leter, as a professor of chemical engineering. In 1994 Prof. Fenn moved his lab to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond where he currently pursues his research.Prof. Fenn developed a new method of ionization in mass spectrometry, which he named Electrospray Ionization (ESI). Previously, researchers using mass spectrometry were able to measure only small or medium-sized molecules. The ESI technique extended the range of applicability to molecular weights of several million daltons. It consists of flowing dilute analyte solution at a rate of a few microliters a minute through a small tube or “needle” on the axis of a chamber containing a bath gas such as dry nitrogen. A potential difference of several kilovolts between the needle and the chamber walls disperses the emerging liquid into a fine spray of charged droplets. Solvent evaporation shrinks the droplet increasing its surface charge density and, therefore, the intensity of its surface field. Ultimately that field becomes strong enough to "lift" ionic species from the droplet to form free ions in the bath gas. ESI can readily ionize very large and complex species such as peptides, proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates that play a vital role in living systems. Moreover, the ions formed from large (and "heavy") molecules have so many charges that their mass/charge ratio is seldom greater than about 2000. Thus relatively inexpensive analyzers such as quadrupole mass filters can weigh them. ESI can readily provide values of molecular weight up to several tens of thousands with an accuracy of one part in 40,000. In recent experiments individual ES ions have been formed with molecular weights in the millions, each carrying five thousand or more elementary charges!
Prof. Egon Matijević received his education at the Faculty of Science in Zagreb, Croatia. Following a research fellowship at Cambridge, he went on to Clarkson University, USA, where he is currently a Victor K. LaMer Professor of Colloid and Surface Science.
Prof. Matijević's research interests include the preparation, characterization, and mechanism of formation of monodispersed inorganic and organic particles of different shapes, with modal size from several nanometers to a few micrometers. These particles can be of simple or composite nature, coated, or hollow. Uniform particles are applied in the production of pigments, catalysts, multilayer capacitors, ceramics, photoresists, as well as in medical diagnostics, chemical mechanical polishing, drug delivery, etc. They are also used in studies of water purification, corrosion, and other processes, the stability of dispersions of one or multiple types of particles, particle adhesion (deposition and renewal) phenomena, interactions of particles with solutes (adsorption and dissolution effects), the precipitation of surfactant salts, aerosol generation and reactions.
Prof. Matijević
has advised 47 Ph.D. students and
135 visiting scientists haveworked in his laboratory in Potsdam, New
York. He has
published in excess of 550 scientific papers and owns 13 patents. Among
numerous honors and prizes, Prof. Matijević was the recipient of the
prestigeous American Chemical Society Award in Chemistry of Colloidal
Materials. His most recent recognition was the establishment of the
«Egon
Matijević Chair in Chemistry» at Clarkson University in 2002.
Prof. Prato received his Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of Padova i in 1978. He started his academic career in Padova, then went on to University of Trieste (1992), where he is presently a full professor. Prof. Prato spent time as a researcher and a visiting scientist at Texas Tech University (with Prof. Shine), University College Dublin (Prof. R.A. More O'Ferrall), Yale University (Prof S.J. Danishefsky) and University of California at Santa Barbara (Prof. F. Wudl).
Prof. Prato developed the organic functionalization of fullerenes in order to overcome the usual drawbacks associated with the study and manipulation of these molecules. He devised a general method based on the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition of azomethine ylides. This synthetic methodology yields derivatives with numerous potential applications in medicinal chemistry and materials science. Representative examples include energy storage devices, the conversion of light into electric current and mimicking natural photosynthesis, and biologically active materials used for the construction of fullerene-based peptides.
The manipulation and processing of carbon nanotubes (NT) has been limited by their insolubility in most common solvents. By using 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition and the appropriate reagents, Prof. Prato has fabricated functionalized nanotubes which possess a remarkably high solubility in water. The latter can be further derivatized with aminoacids, which can be considered as the first step towards the synthesis of peptide-based NT materials.
Prof. Prato was the
2002 recipient of the National Prize for Research awarded by the
Italian
Chemical Socitey He is the Chairman of
the Editorial Board of the Journal of Materials Chemistry.
Chintamani
Nagesa Ramachandra Rao
Prof. Rao received his B.Sc. degree
from Mysore University, India (1951), his Ph.D. degree
from Purdue University, USA (1958) and his D.Sc. degree from Mysore
University
(1961).
Although he started his career working on the spectra and structure of molecules, his research interests have slowly moved almost entirely to Solid State and Materials Chemistry, Surface Science and related areas. In Solid State and Materials Chemistry, his present interests are mainly in phenomena and properties exhibited by transition metal oxide systems, including high temperature superconductivity, colossal magnetoresistance and metal-insulation transitions.
The synthesis and characterization of designer solids with novel structures and properties is another important area of interest. Efforts to make nanoparticles and nanoparticle assemblies, open framework structures and porous solids are underway. Structural tools, especially those involving various spectroscopies and X-ray crystallography are heavily employed. Interests in surface spectroscopy include the study of model surfaces and metal clusters.
Prof.C.N.R. Rao has research laboratories at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research as well as at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He has published over 1000 scientific papers and is the author or editor of 36 books.
Prof. Rao has received 26 honoris causa doctorate degrees from universities worldwide. He is a fellow of 20 science academies including The Royal Society London, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, the French Academy of Sciences, the Japan Academy and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He was a visiting professor at a number of universities including Purdue, Oxford, Melbourne, Cambridge, Grenoble and Cardiff.
Prof. Rao has served as President of the IUPAC and is currently the President of the Third World Academy of Sciences.