Franklin Medalist to speak at chemistry symposium April 29

3:35 p.m., April 9, 2004--The University of Delaware and the Franklin Institute will cosponsor a symposium on “The Inorganic Chemistry of Life,” which honors 2004 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry winner Harry B. Gray of the California Institute of Technology, from 8 a.m.-12:15 p.m., Thursday, April 29, at the Trabant University Center.

Gray is one of six men who are being honored by the Franklin Institute for their contributions in science, business leadership, computer and cognitive science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and physics. The laureates will be presented their medals during a gala awards ceremony and dinner to be held that evening in Philadelphia.

The symposium is being organized by Klaus Theopold, UD professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and is designed to highlight contemporary inorganic chemistry research in the region.

“That the event is held on our campus speaks to the important position that UD’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry holds as a leading research program,” Charles G. Riordan, department chair, said.

According to Riordan, Gray is a leading figure in contemporary inorganic chemistry whose “incredibly broad and deep research contributions have taught us about the electronic structure of transition metal complexes, the patterns of reactivity of inorganic complexes and electron flow through proteins. The latter area is seminal to respiration in organisms, in other words, how we breathe.

“Gray, his students and co-workers have spent the last 20 years designing and executing ingenious experiments to develop a deep understanding of electron transfer rates in biological systems,” Riordan said. “Further, he is an outstanding teacher, has written several books, including co-authoring a general chemistry text, and has trained more than 100 scientists who have gone on to productive careers in academia, industry and government.”

In addition to Gray and Riordan, speakers at the UD symposium include George McLendon of Princeton University, Michael Therien of the University of Pennsylvania and Kenneth Karlin of Johns Hopkins University.

McLendon, chair of the Department of Chemistry at Princeton, will speak on “Cytochrome c and the Suicide Hotline.”

Therien, the Alan G. MacDiarmid Professor of Chemistry at Penn and a former student of Gray, will discuss “Photoinduced Electron Transfer in Unusual Donor-Spacer-Acceptor Structural Motifs.”

Karlin, professor of chemistry at Johns Hopkins, will speak on “Synthetic Modeling of Metal-Dioxygen Chemistry Relevant to Copper and Heme-Copper Proteins,” and Riordan will discuss “Dioxygen Activation at Low Valent Nickel.”

Gray’s talk will be on “The Currents of Life: Electron Flow through Metalloproteins.”

The Franklin Institute selected Gray, who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, “for his pioneering contributions to the understanding of the underlying physics and chemistry that control electron transfer in metalloproteins.”

His work has led to the understanding of such processes as respiration in animals and photosynthesis in plants.

The symposium is free and open to the public with registration. For additional information or to register, contact Theopold at [theopold@udel.edu] or visit the web site at [www.udel.edu/chem/Franklin04.htm].

Other laureates being honored by the Franklin Institute are Seymour Benzer of the California Institute of Technology, winner of the Bower Award for achievement in science; Raymond V. Damadian of FONAR Corp., winner of the Bower Award for business leadership; Richard M. Karp of the University of California Berkeley, winner of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in computer and cognitive science; Robert E. Newnham of the Pennsylvania State University, winner of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in electrical engineering; Roger Bacon, retired from Amoco Corp. and Union Carbide, winner of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in mechanical engineering; and Robert B. Meyer of Brandeis University, winner of the Benjamin Franklin Medal in physics.

Article by Neil Thomas

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