Nobel Laureate Chemist K. Barry Sharpless to Lecture at Pomona College

The lectures are:

"How to Discover Something New," January 28, Tuesday, 8 p.m.;

"New Chemistry and How to Discover It," January 29, Wednesday, 4:30 p.m.;

"Click Chemistry - The Concept," January 30, Thursday, 4:30 p.m.; and

"Click Chemistry -- Applications," January 31, Friday, 4:30 p.m.

Sharpless is the W. M. Keck Professor of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in La Jolla, Calif. Along with his co-workers, he has discovered and developed many widely used catalytic oxidation processes. According to Dan O'Leary, associate professor of chemistry at Pomona College, "These processes have been used to produce new pharmaceuticals that couldn't have been imagined 20 years ago. And, academic chemists have widely incorporated his methodology in their own teaching and research."

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Sharpless has received the 2001 Wolf Prize, the 1995 King Faisal Prize for Science, the 1993 Tetrahedron Prize, the 1997 Roger Adams Award in Organic Chemistry, the 1992 Arthur C. Cope Award and the 1983 Award for Creative Work in Organic Synthesis.

Sharpless joined The Scripps Research Institute as the W. M. Keck Professor in 1990 and has worked at the institute’s Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology since 1996. He previously served on the chemistry faculties of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1970–1977, 1980–1990, Arthur C. Cope Professor, 1987–1990) and Stanford University, (1977–1980).

He is an elected fellow or member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1984; American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 1984; National Academy of Sciences, 1985; and the Royal Society of Chemistry (Hon.), Great Britain, 1998.

Sharpless earned his B.A. degree from Dartmouth College (1963) and his Ph.D. from Stanford University (1968). He did postdoctoral work at Stanford University (J. P. Collman) in 1968 and Harvard University (K. Bloch) in 1969.

The Fred J. Robbins Lectureship was founded in the 1960s to bring distinguished chemists to Pomona College to discuss their current research. Recent lecturers have included Ahmed H. Zewail, Paul S. Anderson, George A. Olah, Richard R. Ernst and Stuart L. Schreiber. Robbins’ interest in founding the lectureship came in part from his career as a metallurgical engineer and in part from his interest in creative research, which developed in his capacity as chairman and president of a major specialty steel company.