The department of chemistry is delighted to announce that Professor Huw M. L. Davies will be joining our faculty in August of 2008.
Huw M. L. Davies was born in Aberystwyth, Wales. He received
his B. Sc. degree from University College Cardiff, Wales in 1977 and
his Ph. D degree from the University of East Anglia, England in 1980.
After a post-doctoral position at Princeton University, he joined the
faculty at Wake Forest University. In 1995 he moved to the State
University of New York at Buffalo and will be joining the Chemistry
department at Emory in the summer of 2008. His research interests
include: catalytic asymmetric C-H activation, new synthetic
methodology based on carbenoid intermediates, chiral catalysts for
asymmetric synthesis, total synthesis of biologically active natural
products, and development of chiral therapeutic agent. Dr Davies has
published over 170 articles and holds 10 patents. He is the recipient
of a 2005 Cope Scholar Award and was recently the Chair of the
Organic Division of the American Chemical Society.
A recent review article published in Nature describes some of
the effort curently underway in the Davies laboratory. A new chemical
synthesis method based on a catalyst worth many times the price of
gold and providing a far more efficient and economical method than
traditional ones for designing and manufacturing extremely novel
pharmaceutical compounds is a major focus of his research. This
chemistry has the potential to improve dramatically the design and
production of new drugs based on small molecule organic compounds,
which comprise the great majority of new drug applications.
As rhodium metal costs 10 times the price of gold, the catalyst is a
high-value material. Available through chemical supply companies, the
reagents are being used by pharmaceutical scientists in both industry
and academia. A major advantage of Davies' chemical strategy is that
the resulting compounds are produced selectively as single mirror
images. Pharmaceutical companies prefer to develop new chiral drugs
(chiral meaning "handed") as a single isomer because opposite mirror
images can have different biological effects and may be harmful. A
small amount of the rhodium(II) catalyst can be used to generate
large amounts of the active mirror image of the pharmaceutical
ingredient.
The research being carried out by the Davies group has been funded by
the National Institutes of Health and the National Science
Foundation, both of which were recently renewed for a total of $1.6
million.
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