Vol. 17, No. 23	March 13, 1998

Faculty member honored for excellence in chemistry

Andrew Evans, chemistry and biochemistry, received the 1997 Zeneca Pharmaceuticals Excellence in Chemistry Award, given "in recognition of research excellence in synthetic, mechanistic or bio-organic chemistry," at an awards presentation at the Zeneca headquarters in Wilmington at the end of last year.

Evans was cited for "exploring new reactivity for the expeditious synthesis of biologically important natural products." His research has focused on unique compounds from various natural sources.

Using a specially prepared chemical "key," for example, Evans last year set the stage to unlock the secrets of five unique compounds derived from red sea algae. The marine-based compounds-known in technical circles as "halogenated nonisoprenoid sesquiterpenes"-may someday prove useful to pharmaceutical companies, Evans said.

He said he hopes the work will inspire other researchers to identify practical uses for the structurally diverse compounds, by making them easier to synthesize in large quantites. His strategy, in the case of the red sea algae compounds, was to use a "bicyclic lactone"-an organic compound featuring a ring of atoms common to all the compounds-to access all of them.

A graduate of Newcastle Polytechnic in Great Britain, with a doctorate from the University of Cambridge, Evans was a N.A.T.O. postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin before joining the UD faculty in 1993.

-Sue Swyers Moncure
Photo by Jack Buxbaum